“Country of OZ” is a curious New Year’s comedy. I really wanted Lenka from Novaya Lyali (there is such a place in the Sverdlovsk region) to ascend on a social elevator to a kiosk on Torforezov Street in the glorious capital of the Urals Yekaterinburg.
And how many ghouls did she meet along the way? Roizman himself took off. And Inna Mikhailovna Churikova somehow subscribed to this mother of vile brothers. Plus, shaking the marginality of the Bashirs.
But the film eventually stratifies into separate parts somehow suited to each other. Some parts are good in themselves from and to, and it is clear that I wanted to make some provocative pile of everything for the holy New Year. The finale is tortured.
Let me add that for Yekaterinburg, the shown is almost an ordinary story. It’s nice to know people and characters. Such bastards from the backbone. In general, "Tagil rules" - as the more popular characters say. Thank you for that. To native black humor.
At one time I was struck by Vasily Sigarev’s film “The Wolf” and “Live”. It is absolutely impossible to say that I liked it. How can you assess (in points) this movie? This is first. And then I gave these films a high rating when I "stepped away" and calmed down.
What's in Sigarev's new movie? For me, this is a very sad story that is happening here in Russia.
The huge amount of mat in the film, in my opinion, is not an end in itself, but only highlights the ill health of people living now.
They say it's a movie about cattle or for him (I don't know what the meaning of the word is) - but that's not true. The film is about people who live in the present.
Probably, many of the film “insulted” aesthetically, but why then watch it to the end, it is easier to turn it off and all. No, we did. So it's hooked.
Cigarev is no fool, and he knew what he was doing. All this mat may seem “artistic”, verified. But why? “Ordinary” people swear so “beautiful” that then for a long time you are puzzled – “what was that?”
Okay, mat is bad. Let's live without him. But it won't work.
Those who think this film is some kind of empty buffoonery, I think, are wrong.
Life is all the same diverse, and to look in it obscene and ugly is unnecessary.
I think the film reflects everything that is happening in Russia. And it's good that the story ended exactly as it did in the movie.
The main thing is kindness and love to survive.
About this and the movie.
Really funny "Country of Oz" Vasily Sigarev, is a crazy adventure Lenka Shabadinova (Yan Troyanov) in the country of wonderful, but, alas, fabulous fools, to whom unwittingly, as well as to her, you feel open sympathy. Take the case that Sigarev to the way to the kiosk, Lenka’s place of work, attributed an interesting plot, to follow which is just a real pleasure. Here, "Country of Oz" presents: Gosha Kutsenko with a dog, a rude Bashirov wanting to be in a women's dormitory, a bard with a guitar, addicted to social networks and much more that is part of us. Sigarev tried his best, and it turned out much better than the “genius” Kryzhovnikov, he managed to show all the beauty of the Russian New Year without falsehood, pathos and sweet tinsel, just the sight of the “Country of Oz”. At the festive table, she will look like an original alien from another planet, which is much more interesting than the self-repetition of the same series of dull conveyor Christmas tree.
If there is such a style of cinema as a black arthouse comedy, then this is about this film. Wild, perverse Russia. That's how it is, uncensored. The infernal madness of barbarians and bastards drawn from ourselves. Strangely enough, this New Year’s comedy does not stand in a row with such glossy puke as 'Yolki' or 'Train Moscow-Russia' although they should have a lot in common. Must be. But no.
In early reviews, I saw headlines from ' professionally engaged in film criticism' nobles, type, ' about cattle for cattle' and read lines about the hyperrealism of the film under discussion. Guys, what the hell are you doing? I have lived in this world for seventeen years. Even now, visiting my parents, I occasionally dip there. And my classmates and yard comrades survive there to this day. There is a feeling that commented on the film vanilla intellectuals; of those who have not yet forgotten how to write due to the fact that even a domestic cat refuses to listen to them, so they flood the web with their subjective idea that around them lives a well-fed, educated and brought up with a decent life society, and somewhere far away, in an almost abstract reality lives a herd & #39; not good Russians' leading a depraved, shameful life out of their own marginality and unwillingness to live properly. Why is it that people have such a feature: as soon as they climb to a certain level of the social ladder, (and maybe they are on it by the fact of birth), cauliflower and carbonate begin to appear in their fridge past puss and sprats, and in the backpack past Pelevin’s workbench, they immediately become confident that everyone around, like them, began to live well and even grow culturally. Nothing like that!
I have always been inflamed by these 'cultural onanists' who love to argue about the form and quality of the food eaten; who can count the number of percussion syllables in a line of a poem, measure the number of strokes in a picture written or discuss the setting of light on the film set. I believe that it does not matter what means the artist uses: whether he sculpts from clay or uses photography. What matters is what he wants to tell us. So, in your opinion, did you want to shout Cigarev? . .
This is the main question of the review. That's the main point of the movie. Therefore, I will not talk about the rare in modern domestic cinema brilliant acting, interesting dialogue, creatively staged, sometimes turning into a fabulous cartoon, frame and skillfully, surgically opened truth-uterus Russian household. I want you to answer the question.
New Year is an exclusively Russian holiday, impossible in any other country or in any other culture. Throughout the year, the people sublimate aggressive energy in order to throw all the accumulated energy into the world in one night.
Bright playwright Vasily Sigarev accumulated life and professional experience spills on the screen in his first comedy “Country of Oz”. Apparently, after the gloomy realism of the films “Top Top” and “Live”, humor, of course black, became a medical necessity. Hoping to make it clearer that this is a comedy and not a harsh reality, the author takes a whole ensemble of stars. However, detachment comes with difficulty, very familiar to all faces.
The film begins with a two-minute prologue shown on the credits in a Christmas tree ball (this is the real story of the actress of the film crew Irina Pilova). Irka comes to a foreigner to offer him her love. He does not want any love and throws an uninvited guest out the window. Irka is in a snowdrift with a broken tailbone waiting for an ambulance. Although, on the eve of the most traumatic and toxic holiday, the service "03" needs not only Irk, but also the whole of Yekaterinburg (the birthplace of the Sigorev and Troyanova couple), and perhaps the whole country.
Meanwhile, Irkina cousin Lenka Shabadinova (the main character played by Yana Troyanova) remains completely alone in the epicenter of the festive rampage. The poor man was carried away by an evil life hurricane from the village of Malaya Lyalya. Unfulfilled by her husband and misunderstood by the world, she goes to the capital of the Urals for a better share. Alas, I chose the wrong time. Sparks of fun and New Year's shells have already infected the air to the limit.
In a black dress with hearts and a mouse, with a small dog named Dudya, Lenka is in a hurry to take a shift in a stall on Torforezov Street before the chimes fight. Where this doubtful place is located, even the all-knowing Yandex does not know. To the desired point Lenke help, although for the most part interfere, to get bystanders. Some have no brains, others have hearts, others have courage. All this they dream of finding somewhere under the Christmas tree, or at least not to lose the last in this festive frenzy. Lena dreams of only one thing: finding a stall. She wanders through all circles of hell, collects kicks and slaps in the way, risks her life (the actress received a concussion on the set).
And meanwhile, on Torforezov Street, Lena is waiting for a changer - a melancholic writer Andrei (co-author of the script, who really lives on Torforezov Street) and his friend Duke - a sack alcoholic. In the stall, comrades drink and philosophize, the abundance of alcohol and wisdom drives them to despair. One tries to incinerate everything around, the other shits. At some point, all the tolerable boundaries of taste are erased, and the topic of feces comes to the fore. It is revealed in depth and in detail, with visual demonstrations of all kinds and shades of human secretions. Fortunately, the innermost desires in this New Year's fairy tale are fulfilled only in the dreams of the heroes.
A terrible night died down, reality was lost somewhere between sleep and reality. According to the classics of the alcohol-anecdotal genre, the morning comes in the final, and with it a healing hangover. On the ruins of a riotous holiday, only two unfortunate sufferers remain. He survived Hiroshima. It's New Year's Eve. And as in the French Hiroshima mon amour, the heroes can count on nothing but a shared past. There seems to be no future here, despite the fact that the ambulance, as always, is on the way. People in the country "03" do not take root, because they do not know the main thing - 'Live'.
5 out of 10
First of all, I want to say that the film is positioning itself as a comedy. But can you call it a comedy? Well, if you like to listen to the monotonous jokes about defecation and censored mat for ninety minutes and maybe you call this movie a comedy. But personally, I only smiled twice during the entire film from two gags (there was no talk of laughter), and this is certainly not enough for a film that is positioned as a comedy.
Defecational humor, outright thrashing and a complete lack of plot is all that is in this film. Just an hour and a half walk among the marginalized, who all the humor is reduced to the above topic.
I don’t know how people manage to find at least some echoes of meaning in it, I thought this film was just a waste of time.
There are films that also deal with low-lying themes that are worth watching, but this film is not one of them.
“She doesn't like my movies, so. You remove some nonsense, says (V. Sigarev about his mother).
Speaking about the “Country of Oz”, one can argue a lot about whether Sigarev was focused on success in the cinema environment, where since the time of Balabanov they love black women, whether he continued the traditions of the generation of our directors of the eighties and nineties or simply made hyperrealism out of a great and bright love for art. The truth is that only he can answer this question, and even then it is not a fact that sincerely. Therefore, it makes sense to distract from the vague reasoning on the topic “why?..” and instead disassemble the film as an independent work of art, although in the case of Sigarev it is never possible to completely abstract from the context.
First of all, I must say that waiting for the New Year’s comedy is better to limit yourself to watching the trailer, because everything funny – of course, funny in the cliché sense of the word “comedy” – is compiled in this two-minute video. The rest of the hour and a half is recommended only for those who can see the funny between the lines (this is if you still want a comedy), or connoisseurs of condo realism, rooted not even in the “new wave”, but somewhere in the works of Pierre Schenal and Jean Vigo. Only before that it is worth asking the question: do you really want to see on the big screen what you can see for free from your window, or even in the mirror?
Those who like Cigarev’s signature “mut” (as soon as I quote the director’s mother, I hope that he will not be offended), as well as his personal Juliet Mazina-Troyanov, will not be disappointed. Yana, as always, perfectly gets used to the role (how can you not remember “The Road?”), and other actors on courage give something atypical for Russian cinema: an inspired play, not a mechanical reproduction of memorized pieces of the script. A rare film boasts such bright supporting characters and clearly built dialogue. If you want to be a realist, be one to the end, bearing in mind that in life people rarely speak in complex sentences, but often swear and use “che” instead of a beautiful book “what”. And also eat dumplings with their hands, wiping the last of the family members is not the first freshness. However, the fact that these numbers are chipped off by stars of the level of Churikova, and the melancholic writer Ilyenkov sits in the kiosk, add much more sura to the picture than, say, a mirage ship, unexpectedly floating out due to typical high-rise buildings. Just this game on contrasts, probably, and allows you to attribute the film to the genre of “after all, comedy”. And although Sigarev in an interview talked a lot about Gogol, dissociating himself from the word “feuilleton”, his brainchild rather makes you remember the sad humor of Chekhov, who at one time was also accused of “stream of consciousness”, which later became a feature of postmodernists, and the lack of final morality. It is worth remembering his words on the art of staging plays:
They eat more, drink more, drag themselves, talk nonsense. You need to see it on stage. It is necessary to create a play where people would come, go, have dinner, talk about the weather, play screw, not because the author needs it, but because it happens in real life.
- remember, and then look at the theatrical past of Sigarev and reflect on the cyclical history of art. And morality... It was once fashionable to write fairy tales and fables, adding at the end an unambiguously outlined lesson to be learned from this opus. Now everything is much more complicated - morality, if it is necessary, everyone extracts himself, and if it is good, does it matter whether the author pursued momentary glory or denounced the vulgarity of his age?
The film was actually made at one reception. The director took a stick of shit and began to smear all more or less traditional characters with it. In order to focus more on the roles of characters, very secular and venerable actors were taken. If the beautiful Snigir - then clumsily rip off tights and stand in underwear in the stall, if Churikova - then mate, if Ekimasova - then the dildo in her hand. The dog is so good that you can not make him ejaculate with listening to the song of the bard. I understand everything about the carnival culture and Bakhtin’s book about Rabel, but I did not see any spontaneity and life-affirming beginning in this type of humor, the praise of the flesh in the film. A gignole with a great dislike of the original human material. Bykov correctly wrote about Dogville - it was not God who turned away from people, but von Trier who turned away from God. So with Sigarev: this is not an authentic slice of Eburg, but flat exercises in the style of early and very old-fashioned Sorokin, which on the screen look more out of place than on paper. The optics of the director are such that the glorious Troyanova is presented to them in the role of a slowed-down babushka, a pure function of Odyssey. A spoonful of honey in the form of a lyrical song in the ending of Kutsenko somehow did not impress. Is the scene with Roizman an example of subtle and inventive humor? For me, it's akin to advertising with Valuev playing the piano in the kitchen. But I have not met any confidently denying reviews of patented critics. It means that I do not understand everything and fecal aesthetics, whose herald at the level of texts is here Bashirov, is an original view of the ridiculous.
4 out of 10
To get to watch this one-and-a-half-hour video for me ' lucky ' by accident. And to call it a movie is simply impossible and blasphemous.
Almost from the first minutes it was clear that it was pleasant to spend time and to enrich yourself spiritually will not work, but had to watch until the end for a number of reasons.
The script of this geek of cinema may sometimes seem logical, thoughtful and similar to all known works (in whose honor and named), but in the end there is a question of the feasibility of this video. The heroes we see on the screen represent the marginal layer of our society, which with great pleasure boozes, talks on mate and generally behaves appropriately, the level of their development, the way. Understanding that they exist and can be crossed at any time, in my opinion, is available to all people. But only for what ' director' and ' screenwriter' come to the conclusion that everyone should take a closer look at this part of society and from this side remains a mystery.
Apparently, the latest trend, which is actively used by Russian directors to shoot ' film about the life of the ordinary Russian people' has not yet outlived itself and expect something adequate in the coming years is not worth it. And a pity, because there are many interesting things in the life of the Russian hinterland, places with a strong vocabulary, places with an active feast, but just one that is worthy of attention.
This will be great for the viewer, who likes ' Bitter', 'The best movies' and other nonsense. For those who appreciate the creative approach in cinema, the ability of the author to ask a question to the viewer and make him think, this film is definitely not suitable.
Watch good movies, friends and be inspired.
And similar ' pseudo-arthouse' nonsense is worth burning!
A girl with a dog on the road of gray stone, people without heart, brains and courage, but stupid and kind Grandpa Frost.
Cigarev is an amazing director. He sees not only the country and the state of affairs in it, he feels the unrest in society, and also manages to see many different people, Russians to the root of his head. His previous works were replete with shock, drama, wild art house (to some extent it is). And now Valery, as it were, says: “Reproached me for a black woman?” Here's a comedy, please. But I'm sorry, it's still black.
A kind and naive woman meets idiots on her way. Of course, with a dog, this is the country of O. No, the country is er-Russia. And Ellie, oh, I mean, the main character, wants to go home, but there is no shoe. Whether you are an idiot, whether everyone is like that, or whether you are all idiots is unclear. Ellie believes in miracles and wants a better life, to work and be out of the countryside, but eventually breaks out of a small black hole into a big one, where drug addicts are in a car, where men with a philosophical voice hang noodles, where strong mothers drag adult children on their shoulders, where prostitutes in kps, where the gargoyle and the witch in a blue stall revel in junk to high conversations about the meaning of life. But Santa Claus still exists and the only bright spot that stands in the way of Ellie to complete hell. Yes, the imperfect Grandpa, yes - with his cockroaches, but he is as kind as yourself, as strange, in general - two boots forty-second.
Who begins to wrinkle his face from a simple good mat - feel free to turn off this picture because there is a huge car and a small cart, and you, unfortunately, are a prude and do not want to change. But, I’m sorry, if two, again sorry, “bad” will communicate without mat for a long time under vodka and beer – it will look ridiculous. And here, in the Cigarev carnival - everything is "blank". Characters are not only not invented - they are directly drawn from real people. They live literally in the neighborhood, they literally work together with you in a supermarket, but what is far to go – is it not you? And this is the paradox: people laugh at the idiocy of idiots, but in fact they laugh at themselves. Yes, yes, I can't believe it, but there's something about it, maybe the idea of the authors. The people on the screen live, they exist in this very country that everyone praises, picking up change in their pockets and going to the stall for a jar of jaguar. And in the course of the film, when tears begin to flow from frank jokes and countless “gags” for a minute of the film, you feel sorry for all these people. But all of a sudden you feel like they're doing well! They're really doing great -- you feel sorry for them, and they're doing well -- they're living, they're drinking, they're rotting inside, they're killing each other outside, and damn it, they're all good! And now I feel sorry for myself. You're part of society. Just like them. And they are not really to blame for what they are. And Ellie, by the way, is somewhere kinder than you, somewhere naiver, somewhere more honest, somewhere even better.
References pour over the whole movie. There are many parallels. Here you and light shouts about the “victory over censorship” (stamped naturally, hello to Mizulina), here you and the banning of homopropaganda message (I will not spoil, but Milonov fiery hello), here you and the original version of the same “Country of Oz” parallel. And Sigarev very subtly, skillfully and at the right time juggles all this “olive” on the screen, and humor pours like a river, as if it was cut out in his past works due to inappropriateness, but now his time has come.
The fictional country of Oz is like a real Russia, from which one really wants to get out somewhere in a fictional country. But will it not turn out to be Russia? And so, forgive me once again, we are running from Russia to Oz and back, from Russia to Russia. We scold the people around us for their worthlessness and wretchedness, and look in the mirror – so the eyes hide from shame. Honesty is the main quality that almost all the characters in this picture initially have. And so mate, alcohol, light surrealism. What most of us don’t have is all of them. Alas.
It is not even worth talking about the acting: once again the beautiful Troyanova, insanely charismatic Kutsenko, who caught the mood of the character, was glad to see Churikova with a very complex hero, but perfectly played. Vasily Sigarev is like a litmus test: he has a black black and obscenely realistic, his comedy is tough and insanely relevant and funny. Call it a tracing or a reflection, the essence does not change: we live in the Cigarev country of Oz and we will not be able to leave here only for the reason (as the character of Gosha Kutsenko sang in the final) that we are stupidly lazy.
But do not be lazy to watch a movie, do not be lazy to catch the strings, messages, do not crook from everything that is happening and mat, just laugh, discuss, plunge into this country and expand the boundaries of your own openness. And don't worry about Ellie and Totoshka, they'll be fine. Like a fairy tale. And in any country.
An unexpected copy of a truly fun New Year comedy from the darkest director of our time. According to festive standards, a fairy tale adapted for the comically tragic Russian soul is taken as a basis. Instead of Ellie, the usual Lenka Shabadinova, and she stomps not to the wizard of the Emerald City, but to a new job in the big city. Now she is not some battered wife from the village of Malaya Lyalya, but a new replacement in a beer and almost emerald stall on Torforezov Street. In an elegant dress and thin tights – a holiday, she wanders around the “country zero three”. She has her own dog instead of Totoshka. And in this country there are horrors without brains, and heartless iron woodcutters, and cowardly lions-bards. Lenka Shabadinova will meet with everyone, put saber-toothed snowmen on call, meet fat-toothed spiders sitting around her mother’s neck, and even survive a trip with a driver under a butyrate (the short but accurate role of Yevgeny Tsyganov).
Interestingly, the most unexpected actors agreed to the roles of these bright characters. And if Alexander Bashirov is not used to masterfully cope with the complex roles of low-level people, and Goshe Kutsenko is not used to organically fit into almost any romantic roles, then to see Inna Churikova, Alisa Khazanova or Evgeny Tsyganov in such small roles, but such successfully imperfect and even obscene images is a real experiment. And for them - a great opportunity to cheat a little from the screen. And not just crooked in another parody with perfectly smooth humor, but confidently go beyond the bounds. To come out so that straight to the people, in the midst of absurdity, laughter and true humor of real life. And especially the part of it, which is so clearly manifested in the New Year holidays.
It seems that people are waiting all year, accumulating strength, a supply of uncontrollable energy, ammunition, in one night to burn out everything accumulated. The carnival of this unrestrained New Year’s fun shamelessly in the literal and figurative sense hits the head. Anything can happen at this time. Everything is incredible and strange, scary and happy. Meetings, breakups, mistakes, insights and other ugliness. After such a comprehensive adventure, you can be left without legs, or you can wake up another person. Even the heroes of the traditional New Year’s Eve “Irony of Fate” also at one time built their magnet attracting to the screens on a small, but still hooliganism. A drunken trip from St. Petersburg to Moscow led to family breakdowns, but still ended in happiness.
Here, without violating the laws of the fairy-tale genre, the modern heroine, bold and meaningfully silent Lenka Shabadinova with a dream of a better life simply cannot disappear in a cage with ferocious monsters or find her happiness in a beer stall on Torforezov Street. After all, this is still a real New Year's fairy tale, so the end must be happy and a little with tears!
People treat the work of Vasily Sigarev differently: some applaud, others scold, but no one remains indifferent, warm. And the absence of indifferent is always a sign of high quality. "Top", "Live" and now "Country of Oz". Some people say that this movie is not for everyone. I dare say that. Such a movie was created and will be created just for everyone, only it can not be measured in stupid categories such as “like” / “dislike”. The categories “felt (a)” / “not felt (a)”, in my opinion, are much more suitable here. And to those who do not see the depth behind the external rudeness, dirt, provincialism in the Sigarev films, I want to say that Russia is not only a country of the Blue Light, Olivier Show, Irony of Fate, Christmas tree, etc. Russia is also a country of Hiroshima fireworks, ten-second tantric sex, Caucasians shooting for fun from “traumats”, fanatical Internet tankers, drug addicts behind the wheel, prostitutes smoking teenagers, a huge number of bukharai ... Russia is the notorious “Country of OZ”, a country of “miracles” without brakes, in which we are all trying, if not to live, then at least to survive.
P. With his new work, film director Vasily Sigarev once again showed and proved that he is the main critic of modern Russian idiocy, and a critic, uncompromising and intelligent.
The comedy of the absurd is perhaps one of the most difficult genres. And the director Vasily Sigarev copes with it “excellently”. Life, although morally heavy plot catches, keeps in suspense, makes you think (and other standard terms of film critics).
Before the show, there was an anticipation - what comedy can the creator of "Two-Two" and a native of the theater "New Drama"? Taking into account the “Kinotavrov-2015” for “Best Screenplay” and the award “Guild of Film Critics and Critics”.
“Be careful, there is obscene language in the film. All the actors who smoked in the film became impotent, the credits affectionately warn before the start.
In the exposition, the sister of the main character Lena (actress Yana Troyanov) is thrown from the balcony directly into the snow. They throw it away again. The result is a fractured tailbone. This is where the adventures of the heroine begin.
Stop.
Why does your sister break the tailbone, and adventures begin with the heroine?
In drama, there is a law: the hero must have a purpose. On the way to it, the hero must overcome all kinds of obstacles, fight the antagonist - in general, perform actions that the viewer will follow, holding his breath from the first to the last minute of the film. Director Vasily Sigarev came up with the heroine - a naive saleswoman Lena from the province. She goes to her goal - to work in the stall. But it doesn't work. More precisely, it acts, but as a child who learns the big adult world. Therefore, willingly responds to the offer to drink champagne, ride down the hill, go to visit a stranger at night. She says yes to all the offers she receives. But “Yes!” is not a conscious act, but a non-resistance to what is happening.
The heroine has flashes of awareness - then she does things. But they move her personal story to the jo. That is, to prison or fight.
In parallel, the heroine is waiting in the stall, it is time to step up for a shift. The inhabitants of the stall have their own lives. And thinking about her. For example, “A woman can take revenge on a man.” But you can't -- you can't. Without x, revenge is incomplete.
For a snack – Inna Churikova in the role of the mother of high-aged sofa terrorists.
The speech of the heroes is a quarter of the mat. It’s just that people talk like that, and screenwriters (Sigarev and Andrei Ilyenko) don’t dare censor them. True, the mass viewer will not be able to appreciate the diversity and (I will not be afraid of this word) of the philological value of the language - obscene speech is "knocked out."
The New Year atmosphere creates a sense of unreality. But if you look closely, you realize that most of the characters we meet on the streets every day. We just don't notice them. Or we don't know the whole background. And Sigarev opens up souls. Caricature, but as they say, in every joke...
You don’t have to take 8-year-olds to this movie and expect it to be a family comedy. I was surprised by the people in the room who did just that. And they realized the mistake only after an hour and left without waiting for the end.
After watching the trailer, there was a feeling that you can expect delusional and very funny humor from the film, a kind of comedy of positions, but this is not quite true. The abundance of profanity sometimes goes off the scale, and it is not clear why it is needed.
In general, after viewing, you realize that it is a pity for the money spent and the head cannot realize what he saw. But among the complete delirium and unmotivated actions of the main characters, you understand that there is some grain in this. This grain cannot be called reasonable, but there is some hint of the true typicality of human nature. I don’t know if it’s serious or if the movie is really bad. For an hour and a half, there were moments when I laughed to tears, thought what kind of heresy I was watching, felt sadness, sometimes even shame for making such films (although sometimes this is to say the least). Among all this, it is important that the film evokes various emotions and even makes you think. The way to get feedback from the viewer is very controversial and doubtful, but definitely the attempt is worth crediting. When I saw Alexander Bashirov in the list of actors, I already knew that something unusual was to be expected.
But making movies like this, and in an atmosphere like this, you can have a different effect and different feedback. It may seem that we live in some kind of hole among idiots who do not trust anyone around and communicate at the level of amoebas. Whatever you say, mate. Yana Troyanova plays a “typical” girl for the outback, as Mashka in real boys. Few people understand that in movies everything is greatly exaggerated and take the action on the screen at face value. The boundaries of reality and fiction are too obscure. For some, it may seem like a movie about life. This film is not about life, but with a hint and a strong exaggeration of some situations that take place in reality.
I urge you to treat this picture as hyperbole. And yet it is more delusional and terrible than worthy of attention. You can safely skip this movie, but since you still decided to watch it, try to have fun and not load, because I walked out of the room with a note of sadness. The picture does not fully reach the ridiculous comedy of positions, does not reach the title of philosophical, the plot is also not clear. A lot of unfounded mat, sometimes funny.
In any case,
“Country of OZ” is the funniest Russian picture in the last few years! It is time to admit that life is changing, reality is different, we will laugh at Ryazan comedies only with a touch of tenderness and even nostalgia. “The Land of Oz” is here and now, today! The Ministry of Health should call for all Russian TV channels to be staged on New Year’s Eve in order to neutralize the crazy New Year’s element.
The fact that this is still a film, and not painfully familiar reality, reminds of the brilliant play of famous actors. Gosha Kutsenko literally rehabilitated himself as an actor for playing in all the Christmas trees and carrots. Yana Troyanova in the image of a girl a little out of this world - again amazes with her acting. After "Wolf" and "Cococo", she has already proved that she can perform any characteristic role. In this film, her character is simply “holy simplicity” and the more interesting it is to watch the reincarnation. Alexander Bashirov rose above the usual roles of drunks in his film repertoire. Unlike the heroes in the Balabanovsk films, in the “Land of Oz” he appears as a true philosopher. Yevgeny Tsyganov, who all year shocked the press with the events of his personal life, finally presented the audience with a real actor worthy work. And even if he has only an episode, the image is accurate and played flawlessly! Vladimir Simonov, after the performance of unrealistic oligarchs in Dukhles, suddenly got a role that in his film career, probably, is still the brightest! The female half of the hall sobbed and grunted while watching scenes with Simonov and Troyanova. Alisa Khazanova and Daria Ekamasova should get their share of fame for playing the role of snowmen! And it is impossible to ignore the bright and insanely talented Inna Churikova! Her phrases, as well as many lines from the “Country of Oz” will definitely become winged!
Director Vasily Sigarev has dealt the best slap in the face of the whole law on mate, all the delusions of consciousness, with which we are zombie officials from TV. While the people were silent, and he was knobbed, Sigarev, like a herald in the square trumpeted that “something is wrong in our kingdom.” Time to call 03! And as the slogan from the trailer of the film rightly says: “New Year will not be the same again!”
10 out of 10
“Country of OZ” Sigarev is a reference to Russian classics, Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin! This is a satire, subtle and very accurate, about our entire Russian life. At the same time, the characters of the Sigarev heroes are all like a selection, you can make an encyclopedia of Russian life. There are colorful women and drinking men, and even children's images - at the very bull's eye. What is the episode with a boy on the street who silently gives the heroine his iPhone? The child can’t even think that Lenka asks for a phone just to call, he is sure that he was robbed. Children’s consciousness is thoroughly imbued with the realities of today, with already persistent phobias and images. Or, for example, in another episode, a student breaks into a kiosk to buy cigarettes. Cigarev is incredibly accurate in the choice of characters, all the details are important for him, every second of the film is like an integral chromosome in the DNA of Russian life!
And the speech of his heroes, even if it was knobbed, is not a mate for the sake of a mate. It's tracing! This is the emotion that is designed to reach the viewer, reach the right nerve, pull for it and completely shake!
Cigarev is genius! And as a playwright, writer and director! “Land of Oz” is a movie for a brave viewer who, after the director, notes that “the king is naked.” But this revelation is only heard so far: “Piyi!”
P.S. It's important to watch! You can even do it a few times.
The third full-length film by Vasily Sigarev, the director of terrible realism, is released on Russian screens on the eve of the New Year holidays - a time magical, rich, and at the same time unpredictable and uncontrollable. The country of OZ is a demonstration of national shades of mentality, cultural codes and features of Russian society, a kind of outlet for accumulated feelings and experiences, stories and cases, moods and emotions of the Russian character in the latest conditions.
Lena Shabutdinova (Yana Troyanova) comes from Malaya Lyali to Yekaterinburg, where she must take a shift in a kiosk on Troforezov Street, help her sister take revenge on her lover and arrange her own life in a new way. While the seller of the same kiosk Andrey (whose role was played by Andrei Ilyenkov, co-author Vasily Sigarev on the script), who is waiting for a shiftwoman, says an old friend Duke (played by Alexander Bashirov). The reality of the big city has prepared surprises for Lenka, which turn the plot into a kind of carnival show, which can only happen in Russia. Russian people have a very complicated relationship with the territory in which they live. The paradox is that the larger the area of our country, the less each of us values space and considers it to be his native, the more the difference between “his” and “the alien” is felt, and the closer to the heart lies the border between them. “The Russian soul is bruised by breadth,” noted philosopher N. A. Berdyaev. The deeply weakened reaction of Russian culture to space deprives a person of that special attachment to some specific corner of his country, which affects the identity of cities, the sense of local self-awareness and social community, the sense of fellowship. And the plane of the existential dimension of Russian provincial life in which this picture is placed, states the disunity and minimal horizontal differences between the regions of the country, whether it is the northern latitudes or the south of the Urals.
The black title of the film - Entertaining Ethology - extremely accurately describes the Freudian session of psychoanalysis of the Russian soul, which is conducted by the authors of the film. Pain-traumatic nerve of the Russian provincial character in our time - despair, aggressiveness and despondency - finds its expression in colorful characters and their actions. In a tiny kiosk on Trophorezov Street, Duke reads the views and thoughts of other authors, written in a small notebook, regarding sexual life and feminism. The fact that the declared ideas do not correlate with the image of the speaker, imposes a special ironic background on this episode. Bard (played by Vladimir Simonov) tries in vain to get the attention of the heroine Yana Troynova, the means of his self-expression are as empty as his attempt to fill the painful pit of notorious incommunicability of feelings, into which many fall after a long marriage. It is noteworthy that the main character throughout the film does not lose her temper, humbly accepts the ridiculous circumstances of the situations in which she falls. Although the uncontrollable and liberated animal essence, the embodiment of the evil sorceress Bastinda, rushes out at the heroes of the picture.
Comedy is a traditionally high genre for Russian cinema, which absorbs the attempts of directors to approach the solution of the mysterious Russian soul. Where there is comedy, there must be tragedy, in the psychological and ideological transformation of the characters, in their actions, experiences and aspirations. The OZ country is not yet another metaphor for an existentially afflicted Russia. These are real events from the life of the director and his friends, shedding light on the deplorable attempts of a Russian person to assert himself in society, to fill an empty, purposeless existence with false motives and meanings. This sentence reads the sober confession of its authors, exposing the instincts of sexual perversion, the attraction to life and death as a supporting force. The country 0Z, where the departure of the medical team - on number 03 - especially on holidays is a kind of element of national identity. Recklessness and unpredictability, everyone is used to it. Uncompromising and bold parable about Russia, which deserves attention.
7 out of 10
This movie was made from what it was. And there was a void in the writer’s head and several unsuccessful attempts to make the audience laugh. If we talk about the script, then it is extremely “raw” and underdeveloped, the authors do not know how to finish the dialogue insert some rude word (thinking that it will clearly be funny). Almost every replica of the hero Gosha Kutsenko begins with the same - "Shabadinov" (apparently, the screenwriters decided that Kutsenko amusingly pronounces this word in his hoarse voice). It seems that the actors were forced to repeat a series of incoherent and ridiculous YouTube videos. A lot of disgusting and unfunny jokes, an attempt to make a dramatic note turned out to be weak, as well as the whole film.
Despite all this “thrash” there were several interesting, “uncouth” episodes, frankly crazy and made at least smile. Until the very end of the film, there was hope that this rampant frenzy, shown in the trailer, was about to begin, but the closer to the end, the more hopeless.
The character, played by Alexander Bashirov, reads the story of a man who so strove to be poetic and sublime in the eyes of his beloved that he was ashamed to walk “in the big way.” Duke (the name of the hero Bashirov) the author of the work condemns: why talk only about sex and feces? As punishment, Duke throws his excrement at the ashamed creator.
I will not assume that such shells are flying in the direction of Vasily Sigarev, but the fact that some viewers after watching the film “Country of OZ” did not see anything there except denigrating reality and mockery over people is as obvious as it is sad.
If you look at the claims about the improbability of what is happening (leaving aside the fact that some moments, according to the film crew, were taken from real life, such as the incident with the fireworks of Hiroshima or deportation from the balcony in Greek), it is worth remembering that the film is fiction, not documentary. He does not indifferently record what is happening, and therefore can claim intentional hyperbolization and other charms.
As for the point about people depicted as alcoholics, moral freaks and hypocrites, then everything is obvious: such people really exist in any country. Ours too. What is so bad in the film, say, the characters of Troyanova, Kutsenko and, for example, Roizman, is not very clear. That is, to say unequivocally that in the film the whole human race was plunged into the mud, it is unlikely.
Now, perhaps, we can move on to talk about the notorious meaning of the film. The assumption that the director Vasily Sigarev wanted to just go for a ride on various fashionable festivals, and therefore his idea was only to remove the black woman, we will postpone until better times, because we so want. Let’s say, for example, that this movie is about absurdity. The New Year in this case is its apotheosis, the highest point. In fact, it is not for nothing that we see its offensive somewhere on the periphery; The New Year is not the holiday itself, but its anticipation. Musician Egor Letov claimed that without a holiday, this life is not needed for nothing. It's hard to disagree with that. In many ways, people are waiting for him, hoping that he will save them from the absurd, but this does not happen. That is why the devastation that comes on the first of January.
It is important to understand that the absurd is not a negative phenomenon, but simply a part of life. He burns the notorious stall, and he also helps Lenka Shabutdinova to find happiness. It cannot be tamed, it cannot be sorted: it is enough to get into the car to the driver under the butyrate (not on purpose!), and the absurdity is already here. It’s just important to know what it is – not to succumb to it, but to be aware of its presence. And remember that the creators of the absurd are we humans.
In this regard, the film “Land of Oz” is much more humane in relation to the audience than many other New Year comedies.
Of course, you can say that just because you found some meaning in this (or any other) picture, it does not mean that it was originally put there. Maybe. But perhaps for this, it is also worth watching a movie.
Shame, comrades, shame! Or how to make a movie about cattle for cattle!
Recently, after watching Russian films, you only hear from many other viewers something like: “This is vital”, “This is about us”, “This is about our people and our country”, “This is the reality of our life in the outback”, etc. And here genre, presentation, plot, meaning are not at all important. Everything has an excuse for it – “as in life.” Whether it’s a bacchanalia called “Bitter”, black life and spitting in the teachers of the province called “Geographer Globes propil”, a worthless “Leviathan” with a drunken main character, and now also “Land of Oz”. It is better to call it the “Country of Zero Three.” And even better is simply ZERO THREE, because it is hurtful to see on the screen to call “Country”. And in general, Zero Three, associated with doctors, saving lives, should be at least ashamed to call this outrage. Zero is the best name for what I saw on the screen. But God with his name, the authors know how to call their creation.
I will return to the topic of “as in life”. I traveled a lot around our country, visited different cities and villages, and myself came from a small provincial city, during my life I had to communicate with different layers of our society. Yes, I do not dispute the fact that in our country, and in any other country, there may be characters described by Sigarev. A fool girl, a drunk, a drug addict, a pervert, an idiot, a suffering mother, her feeble-minded sons drinking, prostitutes. It's all there. It's everywhere, not just us. But this is not the whole truth of our lives. Most of the population is far from the truth of Sigarev. Most of the population is an absolutely sane unit of society, working, striving for something. But for some reason, we are presented as a sheep! Isn’t it a shame to leave the audience and say, “Yes!” The movie is about us! How Cigarev looks into the water! Or maybe the director should open his eyes wider, and understand that everything is not as terrible as he thinks. That there are normal people in our society that are worth mentioning, who are not a pity to spend the time of your film. We used to watch movies, read books about heroes, their exploits, their deeds. Now our filmmakers heroes have become completely different. Shame. I see only one explanation for this. The creators seem to think of us as cattle. We are just like their heroes.
Vital! That's what happens in life! Maybe the next time someone will film a person defecating for an hour and a half, and then say that it is vital, we all defecate! And I won't be surprised.
As for any storyline, it is not in the film. We are simply led by the hand through a provincial town, introducing this or that marginal and idiot.
I don’t see any meaning here, except that we’re all a herd and we’ll be happy to see ourselves, our neighbor, or someone else. Therefore, to talk about the topic, the idea – as meaningless as the whole film.
Special attention deserves mat in the cinema. How fiercely fought for the prohibition of swear words in the movies, the prohibition of smoking, naked body parts, etc. One day I turned on the TV at 12 o’clock in the morning, and on one of the central channels there was an old movie “Blue Lagoon”. So the naked parts of the girl's body were blurred. You see, you can't seduce the viewer. Yeah, maybe so. Cigarettes were also smeared, which is only worth the scandalous story with the smearing of Arnold Schwarzeneger’s cigar in The Expendables. But in the country 03 solid mat rematch, but so selective that the Cord should still learn from them. I’m not against mat in the movies, sometimes it is necessary to enhance the effect, but mat for the sake of mat is too much. You know what else is too much? It is too early to give such a film the age limit of 16+. It should be a shame, dear Minculty!
What do you want to say?
It's a shame, comrades.
We spit on everything, despite the fact that our children still live in our country. We spit on the fact that movies like Country 03 smear us all and create a false impression of our society. It is a shame that our children will see this film. What about them? Is this the age of stupidity and amoralization of all of us? What happens next?
It's scary to imagine.
But despite this, some moments in the film are worth noting as positive. Yes, there are some funny and ironic gags, interesting moments, and certainly there is a good acting. I’m not afraid to even say that some of the phrases heard in the film are strongly eaten into the brain and several of them can even be quoted. But all this spoonful of honey is not noticeable at all. Make your own conclusions about what.
Enjoy your visit
People with a particularly delicate mental organization I advise before watching or pretty drunk to get as close as possible to the characters of Sigarev, or take paper bags.
3 out of 10
When I was a child I saw a book 'The Wizard of the Country Zero-Three' I thought it was about patients and doctors. I guess I'm not the only one who's stuck in this association. The film was more about patients, although there is little about doctors.
On November 28, Yekaterinburg joyfully opened to the premiere, because since the days of Makarov', there has been little large-scale filming in our city. Instead of the Sverdlovsk film studio, now a shopping center and coworking. And here's the Russian premiere. What kind of movie?
Gosha Kutsenko joked at the first screening that it is 'Antielki'. In the sense that 'Country OZ' is not a movie you can watch while cutting Olivier. And it is. Although the story is new year, but with magic there is not so much. This is definitely not a Christmas comedy.
The plot is simple - a provincial woman comes to a big city, which meets her as she can. You're a junkie, you're a mayor. If he trusts a scoundrel, he will run away from a decent man. She is offended as quickly and easily as she is later ' pressed ' the phone from a teenager. And you spend the whole film rushing around and waiting for what will be better: to get her to Torforezov or not.
Usually, in such cases, it is said that the characters of the film are recognizable. Indeed, in the film, we have a garland of characters that you know perfectly well or live next door to them, but you would not even think of making them the heroes of the film. And it breaks the pattern tightly. Thanks to Sigarev, such heroes broke into the cinema world, from which your mother protected you. But that's not all.
I have to give credit to the writer and the director, they were able to get into such depths of consciousness that they pulled out all the nasty, vile things that you hide even from yourself. When you watch a movie, each of these freaks is treacherously similar to you personally. And it blows your breath. And here you laugh, choking, but it is not clear that this is a blow to the solar plexus or just a good joke (and they are there oh how successful!).
This film is a great literature.
It's fine to scold, of course. But it is much more fascinating to unravel the Easter eggs scattered here and there, allusions and reminiscences.
If you are looking for something to treat yourself, go to the movies. It is in the movie effect ' red death on the world' will be especially bright. Turn yourself inside out, be amazed and wrap yourself back.
I had a chance to watch yesterday at the pre-premier show in Novosibirsk. The impression is disgusting.
Although Sigarev said that they tried to meet a wide audience, but still the film turned out to be very authorial. It's an art house comedy.
This is literally not a comedy. There's practically nothing funny. But a lot of mat, swearing and all sorts of nasty and unpleasant scenes. Some people might find this funny. Some were even interested in the “director’s” version with an unpeakable mat. These are the true "connoisseurs" of culture.
Much attention is paid to the “problem” of going to the toilet. It is shown how many heroes cope with different needs, as well as some of them discuss the topic of defecation. I think there is some author's idea in this, but what is unclear, but it is disgusting to look at it.
Our country is shown in the “best traditions” of modern Russian art house. It's gloomy, dirty, bad. There are almost no normal people, but there are many disgusting characters. What can you do without it will not give prizes at competitions and festivals.
Over what the author wanted to say this movie, you should think. There can be a journey of the main, more less normal heroine, through the land of Oz and acquaintance with her disgusting places and characters. Could it be Country 03 (zero three)? Sick country. Again, the diagnosis of our society and country? Again, everything is bad, gloomy, hopeless. I'm tired. And most importantly, our country is not like that at all. Why show all the worst, and even greatly exaggerate?
In the film, there are analogies with the book “The Land of Oz” or “The Wizard of the Emerald City”. To decipher all the author's ideas, you need to know these works and be able to understand the author's film.
I think this movie will not like the general audience, no matter how hard the authors try. First of all, it is a dark art house for aesthetic masochists. The picture will simply be incomprehensible to the general viewer, and few people will laugh at some scenes and mat.
During the years that I have been professionally engaged in film criticism, I realized one banal truth - in every Russian arthouse director lives a writer of the Golden Age of Russian literature. Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that any more or less self-respecting director always tries to remove at least one work that answers the eternal questions of our classics “Who in Russia is it good to live?” and “Is the creature trembling, or have the right?” The problem with all these attempts is that they often end in a shameful fiasco. Raised on the culture of denial of values not only romanticism, but even beloved by many of the Silver Age, young Russian directors do not understand that they are not able to portray the same Gogol Russian trio, rushing on snow-white winter blankets. The maximum that turns out in our children bungled postmodern - three lame mares, shitting on the go, to the sounds of the songs of Sergei Shnurov.
Obviously, the director of the film “Country of Oz” Vasily Sigarev perfectly understood that the plastic world won, and in his new work managed to take advantage of it dirty. The hall applauded all the final credits, and why it happened — now I will tell.
Initially, the working title of the film sounded like “Antielki”, and at the box office it was supposed to appear exactly for the New Year to become an unofficial counterweight to the dairy-acid franchise of Timur Bekmambetov. But whether the guys from Bazelevs did not let him seep into the premiere grid, or because of the abundance of mat and obscenity, the film had problems with the rental, but in the end, the big screens “Country of Oz” will get well if this fall.
The story revolves around two characters who eccentricly mark the end of the old year. He is an obese writer-pervert, who works as a salesman in a beer stall and dreams that a woman will come to him. He drinks vodka with his sitting friend and decides whether a person can become a godmachine without the opportunity to diversify his sex life. She's his replacement at the stall. On the way to work, she first falls into the clutches of a drunken major performed by Goshi Kutsenko, and then spends the night with a bard who knows how to make tantric love for 10 seconds. Naturally, in the end, their stories must become a sickening union. But not in this tape.
After the triumph of Leviathan, many Russian directors realized that the more vile the Russian household will look on the screen, the more awards at underground festivals you can eventually get.
The Land of Oz is a perfect example of how this principle can be brought to the absolute. Here there is everything you want to the soul of a noble pervert: public defecation and urination, masturbation with the subsequent completion of everything on a room dog, constantly pouring liters of strong alcohol into the throats of the heroes, systematically, to the place and not, flamboyant characters, total animal hatred of others to each other and banal hopelessness of everything happening. Here, perhaps, the unspoken principle of our underground works - the worse it will be on the screen, the better the movie will be deposited in the audience's heads.
It is impossible to perceive all this as the position of an impartial and slightly satirical surgeon who reveals the festering reality with his scalpel-video camera, since all this nausea here is not included in any hypertext. Dirt for dirt.
The homeless person who is sick of throwing up on the porch of your house is more metaphysical than in the whole movie.
Some may say that it is necessary to simply perceive everything that is happening as a fervent thrash parody of Russian reality, in which the sore spots of our society are specially shown so grotesquely to enhance the satirical effect. But there is nothing worthwhile, because the jokes in the film are completely marginal, and most importantly - not funny.
A typical humorous scene - a drunken cattle beats the same drunken marginal in the alcoholic frenzy of obscene designs to the loud laughter of sophisticated critics in the hall. For the most part, people laughed when the characters sent each other three letters, or offered to have oral sex. Indeed, the land of postmodernity is in the minds.
In a narrow circle of connoisseurs of large and not very art, Sigarev is considered about the same adept of an unusual view of the surrounding reality in cinema as Mikhail Elizarov in literature. At first glance, it may really seem that they are similar: in the works of each you can find quite marginal scenes, the constant use of obscene vocabulary and the atmosphere of total thrashing of what is happening.
But if the author of “Red Film” and “We went out to smoke for 17 years” under a thin layer of dust piled real cultural revelations and innovative literary concepts, then Sigarev under the line of sewage can only find more dirt and stench. And for all attempts to call it a culture and a creative look, you can safely beat the author on the hands.
So why, you might ask, did the audience accept this film so favorably? The answer to this question, it seems to me, lies in the peculiarities of the cultural code of our age. It seems that after the eighties, a generation has formed in the country that sees problems in the word ass, and in Bashirov, running in dirty underpants through the snow, a reason for national pride.
You can call it anything you want—a counterculture, an attempt at anarchic denial of reality through Trickster’s anal bulb, or simply the banal “I see it that way.” You can always find excuses, but you should not take them seriously. In fact, works like Oz will always be in demand by the critical bohemian, who last visited the subway in her student years. Perhaps for them this is our illusory reality, which can be laughed at in this format. There is nothing worse than this laughter. It is under such applause and slurs that some of the dead are seen off. And who is in the coffin in this case is not for me to tell you.
To begin with, if you’re expecting a New Year’s Eve atmosphere, that’s not what the movie is about. He, like all Sigarev’s films, is about the “sad Russian reality”, diluted with ironic dialogue and a series of ridiculous situations that the heroes themselves create. Will you be able to laugh at this movie? I think so. The hall exploded in friendly laughter, sometimes at absolutely strange moments, really. Will you walk away from the movie in a New Year’s Eve mood? I think it was. Personally, I have some bitter aftertaste, as after the previous films of the director.
The story is not as important as the characters and dialogue. The dialogue turned out to be really funny, and the mate in this film is very even to the place, it is even a pity that he was so blasphemously hammered.
Characters are striking in their inadequacy and unpredictability. There were at least three situations where I sat and honestly did not understand what was going on here.
The main characters of the film can talk about higher values, along the way defecating in a plastic bottle. They can go to work for two days and never get there. They are trying to sell cosmetics “Avon” to a girl who was just found on their balcony, etc.
Among the actors I want to highlight Elena Troyanova and Alexander Bashirov, who were perfectly able to convey the absurdity of their characters.
I would not recommend this film to fans of good films about New Year’s miracles, but fans of the work of Sigarev it is mandatory to watch.
7 out of 10
Review of the film “Country O3” is the funniest New Year’s comedy since “The Irony of Fate...”
There is in Russia a particularly merciless period of time when no forces are able to tear the population away from TV screens, eating olives and launching fireworks in the yard. It's 11 days of the New Year. No one in the world celebrates the main holiday of the year so radically, as Russians celebrate the main holiday of the year, and several films have been shot on this topic, firmly entered the history of Russian cinema. But no one took seriously such a complex topic, every time the story begins with adventures after alcoholic libations and ends with them, plus usually a love story is mixed here.
Vasily Sigarev decided to go further and was one of the first to shoot a comedy, where the starting point is the loneliness of the heroes on the eve of the New Year, and their movement along the waves of time to a new semantic mark. Surprisingly, he manages to convey the mood from the first frames, forcing the audience to empathize with the main character - a naive and pure soul girl Lena. As in the song there is a chorus and a verse, and in the “Country of O3” carnival of jokes and adventures of the main character is constantly “robin” around the story of the owner of the stall on Torforezov Street, who is waiting for her to work (and plays his co-author of the film script Andrei Ilyenkov).
“Country O3” – incendiary and to tears funny fairy tale, where there is everything. And the girl Ellie, and the dog, and a bunch of hilarious characters: an Internet-addicted bard who loves tantric sex and Stephen King, a suicide driver under drugs performed by Yevgeny Tsyganov, letting go of the “free swimming” steering wheel, brilliantly played by the heroine Inna Churikova, frightening in its naturalness her son, and, finally, the brave and slightly mad hero Gosha Kutsenko. Very funny, and at the same time all the characters are easily recognizable, and because they are played by famous actors, the viewer is not afraid, but fun to learn familiar chants. Who among us didn’t blow up fireworks so that sparks fell on his head? That's right, even the director did that. Dressed in the style of Vasily Sigarev, the hero Gosha Kutsenko is needed to still walk the next morning to the very stall on Torforezov Street and find Alexander Bashirov there with Andrei Ilyenkov in the atmosphere of Alexei Balabanov’s films. And when through the gray nine-story houses suddenly appears a ghost ship as if from the film Fellini with Yana Troyanova on board, finally realize that this is more of a parable than a fairy tale. The ship with us all on board sails in the dream of Ilyenkov, and in the time interval of the film, and where and what will sail – unknown.
The hooligan, rock and roll spirit of the film is only replaced by an atmosphere of fog and alienation for a few minutes, but this is enough to give O3 Country a new depth. It's like a rich, frighteningly believable dream after a New Year's Eve party. You seem to be here, and you seem to be there in the new year, in the unknown. Until now, almost wordless Lena begins to resist and even refuses at first the offer to go to the house of the owner of the dog, but then receives a real “random” bullet in the head from an unknown lover to shoot on January 1 and “comes alive”, “thaws” like the Snow Maiden in the spring. The heroine of Troyanova in the hospital gives the audience, along with tears, happy ending, love and laughter again. In the film, where the mat occurs as often as on the Russian streets, and turns into poetry, and bullets whistle over the head, at any moment could play the song “Im a man” or start a chase in the style of Guy Ritchie, but it ends with a real song by Gosha Kutsenko, which once again reminds – the events here are all real, humor – a stunning mixture of surrealism and talented dialogue taken from life, and a happy end in the hospital – an encore after the coolly played main hits of one of the main and most unpredictable directors of modern Russian cinema.
The ugly is the beautiful that cannot be contained in the soul.
Lena (Troyanova) is an infantile blonde miracle in a black hat with a cute diamond on the top. On the eve of the New Year, the expressive Greek (Akperov) threw her sister Irka (Belova) from the balcony - in love, desperate and rude with love. On the day of the celebration, the Greek will do it again, but in front of Lenka. For the stunt thrown, it will be the end of a relationship, a broken tailbone and plaster underpants. For Lena - the beginning of a journey of exciting adventures. Point A is the local Yekaterinburg hospital; point B is Torforezov Street, where a sad replacement Andrei (Ilyenkov) is waiting in the stall, writing prose about human nature, and his friend Duke (Bashirov), a beast of this very nature. Between the dots - the driver under the butyrate (Gypsies), a solid bald man Roman (Kutsenko) in the company of the dog Dudy, a bad bard (Simonov) with a portrait of Stephen King and other persons.
Sigarev’s previous film, To Live, described death as an epidemic phenomenon that happens to everyone regardless of age or position – family, social or religious. Deaf blows of three tragic fates, large-scale painful plans and phlegmatic music of Pavel Dodonov devastated the bodies of spectators and delayed post-view conversations with fifteen minutes of silence. The reaction of others was a quick "La merde". In psychological games with projections of the souls of the deceased, terrible screams and conversations with the church, the figure of Sigarev as a director was drawn as follows: an aesthete with sensitive hands with huge and knocked down fists; in a coat, but with a gunshot hole in the chest area; with clear thoughts, between which the Russian mat slides. There was a conflict of the festival form and the man whose simplicity this abstruse hides in vain.
In “Land of Oz”, the sincerity and unpretentiousness of the director’s look is not masked by a trembling camera and art-house claims. The hole in the coat yawns brighter, the speech sounds coarser and more human, and the wounds on the working fist are visible even more clearly - thanks to the protruding upward middle finger. Each burn in this film or a ridiculous hematoma is an autobiographical story of either Sigarev himself or an adaptation of the prose of his co-author Ilyenkov.
The hooligan approach does not mean criticism or snobbish laughter at the images of Russian life. On the contrary, the director imbues the entire film with self-irony and love for all the mess that is happening in the country and our heads. Beauty in the film is everywhere: dumplings freeze on the balcony, organic grenades are thrown into the snow, a bar hangs in the kitchen, rubber boots creak shyly. Plus: an upset guitar, a mind-blowing slideshow under "My Sweetheart," a hidden viscar flask, an exploding Duchess and a severed pig's head. Romance is genuine and tearful. Showing the main Sorochin fair of the country, the author structurally forms a ring. You can’t go out; you can only turn to your own pleasures and laughter. Which is very good. Rhythmically, the picture is similar to mathematical rock: the acceleration of the car is replaced by a static general plan of the site with a closed bio-toilet; sincerely female gatherings are disrupted by a sharp blow to the eye; the onset of the New Year and the chimes are filmed in timelapse and given sloppy and short, without distracting us from the main thing. The most important thing is what people do.
Like Muratov’s heroine, Lenka repeats the eternal news to everyone he meets: “And my sister broke my tailbone.” The novel in the Bosco costume seriously offers a ride from the ice slide and proudly shows Lenke the techniques of wrestling. The mother of three beauties reads poems about s*** (confused) and pronounces "Avon" as "Avon." Bard – to his salvation – lowers Lenka from the balcony, shouting: “The thieves!” Duke lies on the broken glass. Andrew with anger says a famous rhyme, answering the boy’s question “Where?”. It's all fair and fair. However, much here achieves the effect of Dovlatov prose: the funny is interrupted in a light sad, the innocent - vile, the romantic - tragic.
Of course there will be a race. On mat, on sharp tinnitus, on (non-existent, in truth) hyperbolization. That middle finger is raised only for the New Year's Eve movie - artificially cute, boring and monochromatic. For brave, witty and thoughtful residents on holidays, this picture will be an outlet: let’s laugh in our voice and think. About why all this is and not to love it.
Before a family viewing of the film “Land of Oz” on the eve of the New Year holidays, everyone should realize: this is not another attempt to create a classic New Year’s comedy that can compete with the “Irony of Fate”. Although the poster, the description, and the slogan all speak about the direct connection of the storyline and the favorite winter holiday, in fact, December 31 is only the background, the time of concentration of everything absurd and ridiculous in one place. Here, no one is in a hurry to make a wish under the chimes or to reunite the family for the period of the most magical holiday. Only on the scene with fireworks and Santa Claus cap on the head of Roman (Gosha Kutsenko), we understand that the time of action falls on December 31. This is by no means a minus of the film, but my foreword is necessary to define the audience of the film, and weed out children, people with fragile mentalities and moral phages.
“Land of OZ” is a unique phenomenon, striking in its originality, life in it proceeds outside the laws of space and time, its inhabitants are freaks living on every street, in every house. Situations depicted in the movie sometimes cause bewilderment (yes, so much that at least grab your head), in the same screen absurdity is dosed and diluted with topical and life cases. Unfortunately, the director Vasily Sigarev did not manage to completely avoid the template and outright vulgarity, but for the most part, the humor is qualitative or at least original. You can talk about humor in the “Land of Oz” for a long time. Laughter here is bitter, sick, crazy, bordering on something obscene, but not crossing this line. Social satire, as if rolling the viewer with cold water:" Look at where you live and how you live. The speech of the characters as one of the director’s humorous techniques teems with obscene vocabulary, and the dialogues are saturated with black humor.
Even in spite of these details, to say that there is no sincerity and kindness in the film is to be superficial and refuse to comprehend what is happening on the screen. In the “Land of Oz” there is a place for purity, including love. There is no traditional love line in the film, but it is very interesting to watch the relationship between Lenka Shabodinova (Yan Troyanov) and Roman (Gosha Kutsenko), they are ridiculous and childishly naive, and therefore opposed to the rest of the world.
This applies to Lena herself, there is something pretentiously strange in her, as if she did not come from Malaya Lyali, but at least from Venus. The girl is in the middle of nonsense and vulgarity, they pass by her, but they do not manage to tarnish her soul. Yana Troyanova breathed life into the image of a provincial hapless girl, Lenka Shabadinova is direct, naive and charming, and this causes the sympathy of the viewer.
It seems to me that there is no point in dwelling on the plot separately, since it can be conveyed in one sentence. Initially, the frame is overgrown with a mass of ambiguous images, grotesque humor, delicate situations and something amazing, ugly-attractive appeared.
I cannot say that there are no downsides to the film. After all, some scenes are too long, the abundance of unnecessary secondary characters begins to get bored by the end of the film, and the logic of what is happening often does not obey any explanation. However, the overall picture looks exciting, interesting, and most importantly characteristic of the films of Vasily Sigarev.
The abundance of shocking scenes, black humor and demonstration of vomiting and other products of human life, at first can scare away, but this is the author's idea and you can get used to it. If you are not frightened by the above nuances, enjoy a dynamic, unpredictable comedy. Enjoy your visit.
Prize-winner of the 26th Open Russian Film Festival "Kinotavr". Member of the 37th Moscow International Film Festival. The painting that opened the Moscow Festival, on a separate site "Cinema House". This is where I got to know this New Year comedy. Having the opportunity to visit several days of the festival and see many different paintings, I want to celebrate the incredible sold-out on the “Land of Oz”. Perhaps in our country increased the number of fans of domestic cinema, perhaps the audience wanted to see with their own eyes the maestro Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov or the fact of the “discovery” caused such a stir, but while watching people were sitting in the aisles, on stairs and even in front of the screen — and this is in the big hall of the “Cinema House”. It seems to me that most of the guests of the festival still went aimed at the product of the work of director Vasily Sigarev.
In the process of introducing crew members and incomplete cast members to the stage of the big hall, I still couldn’t remember “where did I hear that last name?” Cigarev... Cigarev... It’s the movie “Live”, it’s “Top”. - No! He's not making a comedy! But when the director’s wife, actress Yana Troyanova, was presented, there could be no doubt. This creative family duo will not be forgotten.
I tried to discard all the gloomy images inspired by Sigarev’s films, as I listened to the producer’s and screenwriter’s jokes about the law “on censorship of verbal sound in movies.” (I do not rule out that it was the content of the dialogues and the abundance of obscene expressions that contributed to such interest in the audience... although some came with children.) Nikita Sergeyevich gracefully brushed aside the accusations against him about the law and, appreciating the elegant style of Sofiko Kiknavelidze (producer of the picture), said that he does not intend to fight with anyone, and even more so with her - only to be friends;
I describe my impression in such detail, as I did not have the opportunity to prepare for the event and did not really know anything about the film in advance. Already the first few minutes of the film, even the credits themselves made it clear why there were so many jokes about the censorship law, and in the tenth minute there was some doubt about the title of the film, since it would be more correct to read Zero Three rather than OZ. Hurry up and call an ambulance! A crazy house is crying for these guys!
I do not want to reveal a bit of the plot, so as not to spoil your impression of the “Country of Oz”. If you are not shocked by the ubiquitous mat and “jargon”, jokes about defecation and intercourse in various forms, then you should watch the movie. The plot is simple, but the characters and dialogues are so refined (if you can call an exquisite replica about “digested salad”) that at the same time you enjoy and slightly shudder at the unhealthy naturalness in the frame (still not in this world we want to live). Behind the charismatic madness hidden clever and extremely vital satire, managed to laugh almost all the vices and prejudices of modern society. It's sad and funny. There is nothing complicated in the film, but at the same time everything is in its place: actors, sound, editing, and the film is pleasant to the eye. (Although the scene of moving the main characters along the flight of stairs looked difficult.)
I have an opinion that films like “Live” to shoot not just impossible, they are harmful. It's inhumane. Now it seems to me that Sigerev is indeed a humanist, but in his search for form he does not shy away from the theater of suffering, sharp satire, or other harsh techniques. He's kind of like Alex de la Iglesia, a Russian who can make high-level movies but will never make simple decisions. Good or bad? We can't judge. But we have to look and agree... or not!
7 out of 10
The magic of merciless humor and toothy Russian speech
'Country OZ' is, of course, a film-dialogue, causing a contradiction in your seemingly established perception of the world. It is full of lively irony, brazen reasoning about the meaning of life and very clear observations of episodes of incomprehensible Russian reality. And this is the real truth! We are surrounded by eccentrics, and for some we are ourselves. And these eccentrics are sometimes harmless, bring joy and a good reason & #39; to sway over them, and sometimes dangerous and destructive in the impulses of their soul. Both are important. After all, they are like litmus test, flaunting what we ourselves are ashamed of, afraid to admit, consider our weakness. And it is not only about some qualities that are considered negative. It's about being who you are. Be able to laugh from the heart at the absurd, survive in any incomprehensible situation and retain the ability to believe. Even with all the seemingly rigidity and originality of the language that Sigarev speaks, from the first frames you can feel the trembling love with which he addresses the viewer.
Separately, I want to note two more striking components ' Countries OZ' - a stunning cast and unexpected bold images in which the artists appeared. No passing role. It's bravo! And a separate achievement is dialogue. There has already been a lot of talk about the topic of obscene vocabulary, which in the film more than ... But I want to share my impression as a person who does not particularly use it, and therefore usually reacts sharply to the presence of one. There is a feeling of complete harmony and appropriateness of each obscene word, not the feeling of being cursed from the screen. And first of all, you get the point! For this work, the authors are particularly grateful - thoughtfully and very consciously wove into history such a difficult tool as real Russian speech.
As a result, it is a comedy, tough, shameless, absolutely alive, but comedy. Yes, it exposes, among other things, some of our not the most pleasant aspects of life, but also gives them an alternative view. Everything can be treated more easily, ironically. So it will be a great movie to catch the mood of the New Year!
Imagine that your movie budget is $1.5 million. Will you spend them on a good, moralistic movie or show unwashed provincial Russia during the New Year holidays with all the characters that follow from here: men who got drunk to the devil, prostitutes in Snow Maiden outfits and lonely perverts? What can be seen outside the window in almost every city during the All-Russian New Year’s binge, viewers can now see in cinemas.
In the first 20 minutes of the film - three acts of drunkenness and countless amount of unreasonable mat, as if the mate is the author's find, but it does not sound innovative, and went out of place. Comedy is a comedy, but why does a nagging nurse make you laugh? As the famous Russian director said: “This viewer went so far.” There was a demand, and there was an offer.
And this is all Russia: skiing on the balcony, a fat man in his underwear, children buying cigarettes in a kiosk, conversations without pretense of intelligence - all this is complemented by toilet themes. And even the broken Internet is so in Russian.
Not much has changed since Radishchev. Just as in his “Journey ...”, the request for help of a person still does not respond. It seems that the panorama of Russian life is over here, but only Gosha Kutsenko’s Olympic uniform seems mocking against this background. Like, look at all this obscurantism around - but we have the Olympics. I would like to believe that this irony was intended by the author.
Courage, love of nature, love of the Motherland. Are these values not values anymore? one character asks. The film is responsible for itself: no, no more values. And in general, all the questions left after watching this film, the answer remains one: “And my sister broke my tailbone.”
1 out of 10
