I;m not sure what this movie was. The first half hour is a good talk piece where these three strangers--2 men and a woman-- pull up stools next to each other in a bar and proceed to bull each other, either i think to make the other people think that they're interesting, or just to kid around. Its actually quite a good set piece as it gets going, you;re kind of just a fly on the wall in that bar, just sitting' around watching these three, and just like watching three strangers talk in real life, you learn about the people as the conversation goes on, (learn for instance that they're all actually lying to each other and don't actually do what they say, which is kinda interesting, because as they were talking i was already trying to picture what the rest of the movie was gonna be like based on what they were talking about.
note to self--don't do that anymore! you're not in America here!, here in America we like to predict what comes next sir!!!)
seriously though watching just the half hour, you might think all right enough talking already, get to the action, but i believe as it goes on, it gets more interesting. Then of course, they all leave, go their separate ways, and then the real story starts, such as it is. you see where the men go after wards, one goes to eat dinner then home to his dad, the other ends up getting arrested for suspicious involvement of his missing neighbor (i think) then it goes to morning, and the movie by and large starts focusing on the woman of the trio.
The woman gets a message on her machine that her sister (????) Zoya has died, then there's a great like 5-10 minute scene in which the camera follows her in closeup as she cuts through this barbed wire fence, and walks through all these fields, walking, walking, walking, all keeping her in closeup, then when the camera pulls out, and you see she;s been walking to the burial site of her sister, its a very nice kind of whoa effect--as in did the camera just stop moving, or did she just stop moving? its cool, take my word for it! anyways this leads into a really bizarre set of scenes in which the film then changes its focus onto the woman's elders in her family. you now have the pleasure of seeing a number of semi-gross (actually really gross) scenes of a bunch of toothless old women munching (or should i say gumming) these giant slabs of lamb meat. and drinking o plenty.
my favorite recurring scene among these scenes is an old lady who keeps waving her arms and shouting while running from wherever she is to her shack to fill up her cup of vodka or whatever she;s drinking, seriously this happens a couple of times, where the action we were just watching becomes completely interrupted by this old woman running (and the camera keeping her front and center the whole time) screaming, arms waving, stopping to drink, oh that's Ole aunt Agatha, she loves her drink she does. (what???) after she drinks she keeps waking her son up from his sleep demanding that he drink what she just drank, (its time to get up and drink! DAG Nat) this happens a couple of times, enough that i thought the projectionist accidentally looped the same scene twice over, just because i thought it possible! this is in no way relevant to the plot, except maybe to show how old ladies, and in a larger sense, how an old family(???) stays together in Ole Russia. A friend remarked to me that it was similar to watching a National Geographic Special on local customs of old women of a certain tribe in Russia. They may have something there!!!!
I did;t even mention the giant replicas (masks) of people made completely out of bread that was the beloved Zoya's specialty, or the grieving boyfriend who growling drunkenly all the way takes all these molds and lays them out in his shed and cries with them, before burring them, and what not. Needless to say, I did't get a lot of the symbolism right off, particularly in the wild bread mask thing, i'm not sure what that was about. but anyways that's about as coherent a summery as i can offer as to what this movie was about. (Oh yeah and in between the scenes of the old women you get snippets of what's happening to the other two men, one gets sent off to prison, and the other is trying to move his dad out his house, eventually these two do intersect again at the end of the movie, but sadly not with each other, but you do get to see them inter-cut with each other at the end, right before the big money end scene which involves yes an old woman singing!)
so basically this movie can be split in two--the first part the nice building conversation between the three strangers in the bar, and the weird old ladies of Russia tribal burial saga, and as to what it was all about, i;m not quite sure, that i'll leave up to you fine folks here at the IMDb, but i sure look forward to reading you're submissions, and lastly i;d just like to say, i would actually like to see this movie again at some point, just to be able to say official's and for the record, yep i'm really not sure what i just saw, but i;d sure like to drink with that crazy Ole lady!
note to self--don't do that anymore! you're not in America here!, here in America we like to predict what comes next sir!!!)
seriously though watching just the half hour, you might think all right enough talking already, get to the action, but i believe as it goes on, it gets more interesting. Then of course, they all leave, go their separate ways, and then the real story starts, such as it is. you see where the men go after wards, one goes to eat dinner then home to his dad, the other ends up getting arrested for suspicious involvement of his missing neighbor (i think) then it goes to morning, and the movie by and large starts focusing on the woman of the trio.
The woman gets a message on her machine that her sister (????) Zoya has died, then there's a great like 5-10 minute scene in which the camera follows her in closeup as she cuts through this barbed wire fence, and walks through all these fields, walking, walking, walking, all keeping her in closeup, then when the camera pulls out, and you see she;s been walking to the burial site of her sister, its a very nice kind of whoa effect--as in did the camera just stop moving, or did she just stop moving? its cool, take my word for it! anyways this leads into a really bizarre set of scenes in which the film then changes its focus onto the woman's elders in her family. you now have the pleasure of seeing a number of semi-gross (actually really gross) scenes of a bunch of toothless old women munching (or should i say gumming) these giant slabs of lamb meat. and drinking o plenty.
my favorite recurring scene among these scenes is an old lady who keeps waving her arms and shouting while running from wherever she is to her shack to fill up her cup of vodka or whatever she;s drinking, seriously this happens a couple of times, where the action we were just watching becomes completely interrupted by this old woman running (and the camera keeping her front and center the whole time) screaming, arms waving, stopping to drink, oh that's Ole aunt Agatha, she loves her drink she does. (what???) after she drinks she keeps waking her son up from his sleep demanding that he drink what she just drank, (its time to get up and drink! DAG Nat) this happens a couple of times, enough that i thought the projectionist accidentally looped the same scene twice over, just because i thought it possible! this is in no way relevant to the plot, except maybe to show how old ladies, and in a larger sense, how an old family(???) stays together in Ole Russia. A friend remarked to me that it was similar to watching a National Geographic Special on local customs of old women of a certain tribe in Russia. They may have something there!!!!
I did;t even mention the giant replicas (masks) of people made completely out of bread that was the beloved Zoya's specialty, or the grieving boyfriend who growling drunkenly all the way takes all these molds and lays them out in his shed and cries with them, before burring them, and what not. Needless to say, I did't get a lot of the symbolism right off, particularly in the wild bread mask thing, i'm not sure what that was about. but anyways that's about as coherent a summery as i can offer as to what this movie was about. (Oh yeah and in between the scenes of the old women you get snippets of what's happening to the other two men, one gets sent off to prison, and the other is trying to move his dad out his house, eventually these two do intersect again at the end of the movie, but sadly not with each other, but you do get to see them inter-cut with each other at the end, right before the big money end scene which involves yes an old woman singing!)
so basically this movie can be split in two--the first part the nice building conversation between the three strangers in the bar, and the weird old ladies of Russia tribal burial saga, and as to what it was all about, i;m not quite sure, that i'll leave up to you fine folks here at the IMDb, but i sure look forward to reading you're submissions, and lastly i;d just like to say, i would actually like to see this movie again at some point, just to be able to say official's and for the record, yep i'm really not sure what i just saw, but i;d sure like to drink with that crazy Ole lady!