Movie about nothing. I mean, technically, there is a plot, but it's more like a bunch of situations, that tied together, trying to survive. Which does depict life in russia quite accurately. Considering that the movie does succeed in certain level of authenticity of the atmosphere, I am not even surprised, that it just re-affirmed my reluctance to ever return to russia, even though I know, that I will have to, at some point, at least once.
I do not know if that was the intention, but to me it looked like the movie was meant to show how utterly hopeless life in russia is. How corrupt, how perverted, how up-side-down. There was no semblance of happiness anywhere, and as "the plot" progressed it became progressively worse. I believe this was meant to criticize "people with power", though, and perhaps others saw that more clearly, since the director had to kind of "pay back" for this later on with "Стена" (or so they say).
But there is a chance, that this was not even intentional. Why? Because characters are completely flat. And, yes, for the "villain" of the story that is probably fine, but for the rest?.. Not so sure. Their motivations, and their relationships are very... Strange. I get it, that we are not show their whole lives here, but that's true for most movies, and there are quite a few, that are able to better explain what drives the characters. The most obvious here is Lilya, because there was nothing prompting her to get involved with Dmitrii. At least, nothing that was shown to us.
Are we supposed to imagine? To guess? That's certainly an approach, but I do not think it works that well here. Or maybe I just forgot what it's like living in russia, since at the time of writing I have not been there for 4 years? Maybe if I watched it, while I was still there, I would have appreciated constant alcohol consumption on the screen a bit more, and understand the "philosophy" better? As is, I just did not get any emotions from the movie, so consider it a waste of my time.
