Powerful social drama about bullying The picture of the Romanian production "#Sasranka" received the main award of the MIFF 2021 - the golden George for the best feature film. The unusual hashtagged name hides a powerful and terrible social drama about the persecution of a person, which began on the Internet, smoothly migrated into reality and eventually actually broke the life of a girl completely, it would seem, out of the blue.
How did it all start? The main character picks up a puppy in a homeless animal shelter. On the way home, in the subway car, the unfortunate animal rocked and vomited on the floor. The girl was unprepared for this situation, and she did not have at hand any package or napkins to clean up after the puppy. Surrounding passengers reacted to the incident with excessive aggression, forcing the girl to clean up after the puppy. Some people dispersed to such an extent that they were almost ready to throw their fists at her. All this decided to shoot on the phone one of the passengers, a teenager. Tired of aggression, the girl left the car at the nearest station, and not cleaning for the puppy.
The teenager edited the video and posted it online. On the video, it seems that the girl not only refused to clean up, but also bragged an elderly person who made a remark to her (how rude this person was to her and how he wanted to hit her, of course, remained behind the scenes). The video instantly spread throughout the Internet, and the girl was showered with tons of insults from virtual users and inadequate bloggers, calling to brand her a disgrace and turn her life into hell. Dozens of people found someone to blame their aggression on. They would come to her house, shout nasty things at her, paint the walls of her office with insults, and send boxes of excrement to her boss, demanding her be fired. As a result, they achieved this, but they did not stop there – they even got to an innocent puppy.
The film is incredibly scary for its vitality and realism – the level of human aggression is simply huge now, we see it both online and on the streets, and how terrible it is when human cruelty is unleashed on an innocent person for nothing. In the place of this girl could be anyone for absolutely any reason or for no reason at all - what difference does it make, yes, if there was an object on which you can tear down evil with impunity? To destroy morally and physically, to humiliate, to spoil life, to bring almost to suicide. What's wrong with you people? Where does humanity go when there is impunity? How far can you go in your cruelty to another person? The film was very heavy, although not black. After the credits, there is a sediment and a lot of thoughts about human nature. Absolutely deserved the main prize of the festival. I would recommend watching.
8 out of 10