“To See Lukomore and Die” or “Alice in the Land of Pagan Wonders” Kostroma is a very unusual, original, colorful, poetic film with a pronounced ethnic color, based on Slavic pagan mythology. This is the only feature film by Valery Surikov (1963-2015). Kostroma was called a ritual character in one of the rites of the Eastern Slavs. The ancient Slavs, like many other peoples, had a ritual of initiation. The girl before the wedding had to undergo a complex ceremony, it was assumed that she would be plotted by various representatives of evil spirits, have to face trials and miracles and even die (not seriously, of course). The plot of the picture is based on the recreation of this rite. The old man plays the role of a guide to the world of evil. The director, like Charon, offers the viewer to go on a voyage along the waves of the “collective unconscious”, plunge into the psychedelic “stream of consciousness”, get acquainted with “Alice in the land of a pagan mirror”, visit the trinitarian kingdom of poetic and folklore mysticism, at the crossroads of worlds, where paganism unfriendly meets with Christianity, the dead liveliest of all living, mermaids and leopards are as real as people, live the ineradicable spirit of faith in a miracle.
In addition, "Kostroma" is also a visual tastiness: juicy landscapes in combination with camera delights, a pinch of eroticism and folk songs - a seasoning for delicacy. Over the visual range in addition to the director worked artist Shavkat Abdusalamov, who worked on “Stalker” Tarkovsky and cameraman Yuri Klimenko. Klimenko - one of the best operators in Russia, multiple winner of prestigious awards, including "Nika" and "White Elephant", worked on many films by Alexei Uchitel (including "Walk", "Matilda"), Govorukhin, Solovyov, "The Legend of the Suram Fortress" Parajanov.
“Kostroma”, in my opinion, is one of the best domestic films, the director managed to shoot a very original film, completely unlike anything else.
To create a unique cinema world, the picture can be called a forgotten masterpiece. Although, fans of mass culture probably will not like it. This is not a movie for everyone.
9.5 out of 10