Come on, rooster, go home. Leonid Shmelkov’s six-minute animated hooliganism received a sudden (and perhaps quite intentional, who knows) viral ad when funny footage from a Moscow subway car appeared online. In 2016, on the Serpukhov-Timiryazevskaya line, a thematic composition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Soyuzmultfilm was launched and decorated with images of characters of both favorite Soviet cartoons and modern works of the studio. The point is that none of the passengers, especially the male passengers, wanted to sit in the place above which the title of this cartoon adorns. I wouldn't sit down either, heh.
Regardless of whether we see a provocation in the title or not, “A Very Lonely Rooster” is a remarkable thing and in some ways even unique. This cartoon is so unusual that the core of its essence levitates somewhere between drug-addicted delirium, upscale sura, deranged primitivism and outright banter. It is very difficult to evaluate.
There's a bearded man sitting here. Next to the moron, the rooster lays eggs (yes, rooster; yes, eggs). The man pulls the rope, the box drops from the sky, the rooster puts an egg there, the man pulls the rope again, the box with the egg flies back to heaven. And so on and so forth. However, the man begins to nap and soon falls asleep. The rooster decides to pull the rope himself, this is where all the f... In general, it makes no sense to describe further events in words. What happens on the screen seems incredibly stupid and meaningless, but, at the same time, gives a fresh stream of irrepressible imagination, daring arthouse and very perverse (not in the bad sense of the word) humor. It is especially difficult to restrain emotions from unexpectedly inscribed in the cavalcade of absurdities and marasmus parodies on the game “Mario” and the cult scene from “Three Poplars on the Floating”.
Of course, after a much less strange and much more serious short film Shmelkov “My personal elk”, in a peculiar form telling about the relationship of the boy with his father, “Very lonely rooster” looks like a form of stupidity, a funny experiment without a claim to the depth of inherent meanings. However, with a special desire, behind funny pictures you can see a satire on the simple way of life of the Russian hinterland or read the bizarre philosophy of the universe, in the bosom of which the stupid routine is interspersed with something fantastic and unthinkable. In the same way, this cartoonishness, born in the head of an original author, can equally well be called both “insane ridiculous thrash” and “the brightest pearl of domestic animation”. The fact is that it cannot surprise you. And quickly forget, too.