After watching the movie, I had a feeling of incompleteness. Maybe it’s because the film debut for Hunt, or maybe it’s because he wanted to leave it.
The film was released a hundred years ago, but it is never too late to get acquainted with it: it is worth knowing young Russian directors by name. Perhaps they are the future of our cinema, which now seems rather vague.
Here's Vitka Garlic. His last name is Garlic. Neither father nor mother, every evening after hard work, gets drunk in the trash, and then indulges his petty ego with a fight or shouts at the first person who turns up. Sometimes it's a wife.
The boy grew up with his parents, his father did cunning things, beat his mother, left the family. And my mother once could not stand it – and Vitka was in the orphanage. His life is far from fairy tale, but it seems that there are two hands, two legs - and therefore, you can live. There is even a wife and a son.
You can live, but the level of misfortune of the boy is skyrocketing. He was left with bitter resentment and fury hidden on his father somewhere in teenagers. Even with his family and work, responsibility and interest in the future, the guy does not grow. He not only suffers himself, living every evening after work in a frenzy, but also torments others.
That's our Vitka Garlic.
Here's Leha Styre. Why Styr is unknown, it chased from either the prison or pre-prison past. He's also Garlic. Dad must be Vitkin. He was struck, and from prison the paralyzed moved to a bed in the apartment. He is being cared for by a woman who loves his property. But this is a side issue: the director clearly did not aim to create a caricature of all the unfortunate and unscrupulous in Russia.
An employee of all known organs leads Vitka to look at the father, assuming that he... and what, in fact, is he? He immediately said everything he thought about the file. However, the housing issue not only spoiled Muscovites. And so Vitka decides: there is an Indvalid dad and there is his apartment, and as soon as the first one is in a suitable place for him, the second one immediately goes to the boy.
Not the most cunning plan throws us from the most ordinary, all seen, social drama, in the road-movie. Criminally, lively, really, humor does not make the situation any easier.
Vitka at the wheel, Lesha consider that in the trunk, take fellow travelers, hurry to some area where they will welcome a completely unwalking man over fifty.
But all plans are broken. And here is how these violations cope with “heroes”, interesting to observe. This is not a sharp twist of the plot with a fight and a chase (although anything is possible), but a search for hope. The dialogue will begin one way or another, no matter how many years have passed. And then the always looking for something, the ever aggressive Vitka, who so lacks a truly loved one, may hear something important hidden behind Lehi’s rude and aimless words.
And Shtyr, in turn, had enough time to realize the guilt and hide it, almost stiffened, behind his nasty manner of commanding the once lost son. This may not be noticed, perhaps – that’s the question: you can look and wait for something the whole movie, all your life – and never wait. And you can see the smoldering fire of hope – for a normal life, for a family that never existed, for support, for truth, for anything! – in the eyes of each of them.
Good. And deep. It’s funny, and at the same time, I want to cry. At the same time, it is interesting to watch. This is an unusual style road Movie, you know.
The film is decorated in the entourage of a modern province, with all recognizable cultural layers, skillfully smeared by the director on the plot. Actually, Vitka is the main character, and is a natural asshole, although he positions himself as an orphan and a victim. In fact, he's an ordinary cattle. Works in shit, picking up garbage, and lives in shit, not spending cultural leisure. Drinks, dancing, fights, women... It's like normal kids. You look and you are happy, well, I am not at all, I am good.
He has one dream - to take out a loan, buy an apartment and get away from a bored wife and an unnecessary child, along with a friend who is not burdened with intelligence. And then fate throws Vitka paralyzed urka-daddy, with a separate apartment. This is the chance to start a new circle. All that's left to do is put Dad in an institution, and then everything will be kind of top. Vitek does not particularly reflect on the solution of the original Russian questions - who is to blame and what to do?
Guilty Dad and all the rest, you just have to get rid of them.
Zvyagintsev, Ross, Bykov, then Balabanov, Balabanov, and again Balabanov ...
And a little Jarmusch, with his eternal travels and his specific manner of design of the sound series (the music here is successfully selected).
I had a lot of associations after watching. This can be seen in the approach to the topic and in receptions. But still, the director’s style is visible, this is not a clutter “under the master”.
In my opinion, Alexander Hunt, following the classic social theme of Russian cinema, made a clear focus on the hero. There is no obvious flickering of the sores of a social or political system, as Zvyagintsev or Bulls do splendidly, in their dark-black manner. And the finale with a hint of a ray of light in the dark kingdom of Hunt. Still, he breaks the circle of gloom a little.
Hunt in this film took on a difficult task - to take the most obnoxious hero, just so revealingly disgusting, and then gradually find something bright in it, so that in the end the viewer is not what he loved, but definitely would be empathetic. It is the psychological transformation that distinguishes this film from the films of the same Balabanov, whose characters almost do not change. They initially both set and went according to the plot, burning out all the gloom of life with their moral spotlight.
In this film, the hero changes at a climax. And his outlook on life, and himself. There is no theatrical reflection, everything is close to reality. I thought Vitka saw himself in his father. And father in himself. After all, Vitka himself was going to abandon his child. And how can he judge his father?
This led to an internal transformation. And who knows, maybe Vitka will finally break this endless circle that reproduces suffering?
8 out of 10
The painting “How Vitka Garlic drove Leha Styr to the disabled house” from the very beginning bribes with its cumbersome title and resembles a certain story. And so it is: VGIK graduate Alexander Hunt shot a real story about the worst and best sides of a simple, “earthly” person, and also touched on the topic of family, so valuable for each of us.
The film tells the story of a simple adult guy who grew up in an orphanage of a small and forgotten “town N”, who is a typical representative of the lower class of society, who is married not for love, works in a factory, walks in the evenings in clubs and can not get the long-awaited loan. The whole “idyll” of his life spoils suddenly appeared father, or rather, on the contrary, gives hope for the long-awaited hero apartment only if he takes away his father, a disabled 1000 kilometers, where he finds those who care about him. The plot is very easily perceived by the viewer, and all the events of the film for the genre of “road-movie”, to which this picture belongs, develop extremely intensively, which does not let you get bored from any protracted exposition or a confused middle filled with unnecessary details.
The film is a good example of an ideological canvas, where everything is made extremely simple and tasteful. The details of the plot or the life of the main character do not play a key role at all, because the emphasis is rather on those thoughts that the author tried to convey to us through the story told by images. However, despite the bias in ideologicality, which is so necessary for a modern Russian film, just the same and its laudatory simplicity in combination with some noticeable “sagging” of the young director and are its main “stones” that constrain the development of the drama, which is felt in the touching story of the meeting of father and son and the incompleteness of which does not give the film the highest score.
Some “sagging” of the director, which was mentioned above, of course, are not critical, but can not go unnoticed strange long shots unnecessarily in the style of a trip on the roads of Japan from “Solaris” Tarkovsky (but, of course, not lasting for 5 minutes) or strangely selected musical compositions that, although fit the film to the atmosphere of the current, poor areas of Russia, where this plays in almost every second old car, but nevertheless cut the ear and sometimes look superfluous in the picture.
With the script, everything is extremely good and only embarrassing is the lack of soulful scenes like the one when the father finds memories of the hero’s childhood and he shares them, which creates a certain “chemistry” between the characters. The consequence of this defect is the incomprehensible motivation of the protagonist, who, as if at the click of a finger at the end of the film, begins to risk his life for the sake of his father, whom he recently hated for quite good reasons. Acting duet Alexei Serebryakov and Evgeny Tkachuk really kept at a decent level, but the hero of the second actor as to me occasionally, but still overplays with bombastic aggressiveness in the same manner of speech. As for the minor characters who appeared in the film for 5 minutes, things are much worse. Their replays and theatricality often knocks out of faith in everything that is happening, while camera work with an interesting decision to often use a wide angle, on the contrary, adds chamberliness to what is happening and makes you feel involved in this story and the atmosphere of dull provincial suburbs.
What should be praised separately is the work of the director of the picture. Poor views of the remnants of the Soviet past, a holiday of life in the poverty of the province, which indeed each of us can meet in everyday life if we travel 100 km from any cities of millionaires, here all these frightening shots do not disgust the viewer, but rather attract and fascinate with their romance. The same effect can be seen in the poetry of I. Bunin, in which he describes the dirty, terrible Russian village so aesthetically that you involuntarily want to live there.
I want to say a few words about the ending of the film. Yes, it is possible to leave the hero's decision behind the scenes is partly correlated with the slogan "Become what you are" and gives the viewer complete freedom to think about their own life choices, however, nevertheless, the understatement in such works is often felt as something wrong and in this case does not increase, but rather knocks down the heat of the drama of a specific story with specific people, looking at which you can either be inspired or remain in deep reflection and try to take into account those mistakes and the path through which the main character passed, as in the same "Leviathan" Zvyagitsev. To leave the ending open, in my opinion, was a mistake, especially considering that the picture is mostly perceived as a story, the purpose of which, like no other genre, is to educate the viewer. If “The Return” of the same Zvyagintsev with a similar plot about the reunification of father and child can be compared with the Tolstoy epic tragedy, then this picture will be more like “At the Bottom” of Gorky, where, with all the shown poverty of uneducated, ordinary Russian people through the pages (and in this case, through the frames), the entire tragedy of their situation is traced.
I thought for a long time what to rate the film, in the end agreed that it will be less, but “neutral” than “negative”, but a little higher. A big role was played by the fact that in fact, this is the debut picture of director Alexander Hunt. And the debut, admittedly, turned out not bad enough (could be worse).
From Serebriakov, admittedly, I was waiting for something more. Either the wheelchair did not allow the real talent to come out, or the image of a sullen and gloomy criminal obliged him to behave appropriately. But for me, his hero was plain and empty.
Except for the indistinct roles of the second plan, which, as it seemed to me, were stuck like cotton in a bag of candy, and the frequent replay of the main actor in the person of Eugene Tkachuk, still did not eclipse the main disadvantage of the picture. Namely, the blurring of the main storyline. It seems that there are roads inherent in the “road drama” with a national “character”, and landscapes in the form of fields, forests and typical villages, and the soundtrack is completely selected very authentic and atmospheric. But the feeling that something was not pressed did not leave until the very end. At the end, I did not see the morality of the whole hour and a half story, which is not alien to any Russian person. And many have their own familiar Garlic. And we've got half a country, too. So what's next?
Road Movie about a gopnik who, to sleep with his girlfriend, is ready to take a barely alive criminal father to a disabled home.
Dad, however, turned out to be quite strong, so there was enough adventure for two. The flawless script, sinning unmotivated ' surfacing ' and transitions, nevertheless wins laconic and almost neorealistic, in the spirit of famous film Italians and film Americans, morality. The film is especially good against the background of numerous television productions that brought to our soil the Latin American groans of the weeping rich. Here is provincial consumption, the proletarian landscape of an almost faceless city, almost dead characters of the dashing 90s and a socially undisturbed, but thoroughly forgotten birder from somewhere from even earlier years.
But this work will be remembered, of course, with two acting solos - Alexei Serebryakov, familiar in his acting class, and Yevgeny Tkachuk, much less famous. Serebryakov seems to have slightly changed and continued the fate of the dysfunctional teenager Viktor Chernov (Last Escape) and a bandit named ' Advocate' from ' Bandit Petersburg'. Weaver must have been harder - he doesn't have that background. All the better. It's even nicer to direct. In a different approach, the story of the two marginals threatened to turn into either a black woman or a sentimental novel. But a young director, Alexander Hunt, walks right in the middle. Of course, there is no idea where the bandits who have climbed onto the Styr do not paint the picture, like some other absurdities, but firstly, they are not particularly noticeable, and secondly, they are also hidden behind the skillfully inserted irony that spread to the final. But it is still open.
P.S. A separate joy is a cutely selected soundtrack.
Celebration of stamps, or why we do not love our country so much.
Russian cinema is not experiencing the best of times for the first decade. And so it turns out that two different courses are taken as the main ones: stupid, shameful comedies with lower-belt humor and black dramas about inhuman life in the Russian hinterland, which is the entire territory of the country except for two capitals. Moreover, films belonging to the latter category are fondled by the attention and favor of film critics, win at international film festivals, advertise representatives of certain social niches and their simple way of life as the only possible in Russia. Of course, such stories know the right to life, especially if they are skillfully presented and professionally beaten, as happened with the films 'Dislike', 'Fool', 'Portrait at dusk'. It's a win, a long standing ovation, and yes, it's a movie about us. But...
The film about Vitka and Lehu is a crazy farce with unrealistic characters that you do not believe and do not empathize with, and it would be nice if the movie was shot in the genre of black comedy, where the grotesque and buffoonery are appropriate, and the hyperbalization of the images of the characters is a script technique. So no, the film pretends to reflect the everyday life of the ordinary working people with all the classic sitcoms of booze. It seems that in a secret film laboratory the series 'Real boys' decided to cross with ' Boomer' and lay a thin layer 'Leviathan'.
The main character, Viktor Chesnokov, a representative of the classic cattle from the doorway. Married an unloved girl ' on the fly', has a high school mistress, which is otherwise ' bitch' does not name, and all his affection for her is reduced to sex on a shabby sofa in the garage. Victor also rests exclusively according to the canons of his caste: provincial, if I may say, bars, but in fact roadside cafes, where he and his friends get drunk to the point of unconsciousness, creates various outrages in order to demonstrate his alphasmicness. And at the end of cheerful alcoholism returns to the family (our hero has a young son), and there becomes a titled kitchen fighter. And also Vitya is going to take a loan in ' money head', irrevocable such a loan, our Victor is a desperate guy, and collectors will not intimidate him. In general, the core marginal classic, even the eyes cut. But suddenly Victor, who grew up in an orphanage, learns that his father returned to the city, and he is seriously ill, and Vitya is the only one who will be able to take care of his father, since he has no other relatives. And then there is a long road with awareness, forgiveness and forgiveness of sins.
And then the question arises: how is such a broken life, circumstances and himself, a person who does not know how to love, who, like a mad beast, breaks his head again and again against the rusty rods of his own worldview cell, capable of rethinking, is able to evoke sincere sympathy? Yes, a desperately difficult childhood in an orphanage, the mother hanged herself, the father in prison, how not to sympathize, not to understand this quite logical brutality in look, gestures, voice, contempt and hatred for everything and everything, but it would be a lie to say that such a hero disposed to himself, everything that rises in the soul, looking at this guy, this feeling of disgust, no more, no less.
I really want to see different films on the eran, I want the hero of our time to finally stop associating with directors with yard scum and representatives of the gang, no matter what anyone says, those times are gone, modern youth is different: interested, dreaming, looking, including outside the Moscow Ring Road. It is time to change the record, and start making a movie about the day today, in which there is no all this animal dirt, meaninglessness and despair. Russia doesn't fit in a hat, gentlemen! My Russia is not in the film about Vitka and Leha? And yours?
2 out of 10
The movie is about returning, and as you know, you can only come back. The film opens with an exhibition of intellectual regression of the Russian province. The factory where all the able-bodied young people of the city work. The shift is over. An old shoe falls to the ground in slow motion. Viktor Chesnokov went to the disco in fashionable yellow sneakers. The more he wants to escape from the gray reality and live on a big foot, so intensely he drinks and walks with friends in a local restaurant, not missing the opportunity to get involved in a fight and take away someone else’s girl. Victor’s wife, despite active resistance from her husband, does not stop trying to bring him home. As an electric shock, she beats her husband with a reminder that he grew up in an orphanage. It's not that the wife is so soulless. Just in an already grown man still lives an offended child who likes to dream and does not come to terms with the fact that the world around him is far from fabulous. In fact, it is impossible to blame him for this, as, probably, and in the fact that his own son will soon hate a drunken father, as well as the father of his grandfather. All the same dislike, which is transmitted from generation to generation, has definitely become one of the main themes of Russian modern cinema. However, the film is not about a simple statement of fact, but about traditional questions, who is to blame and what to do. And the director, it seems, almost managed to give an answer to them.
The events of the first half of the picture unfold reluctantly. The viewer seems to know what will happen to the hero next, and he actively resists this. That's how Victor does not understand from the very beginning that he will have to take care of his sick father? What is the distance from hate, if not love, to forgiveness for a few miles in a used car? While the hero hardly twists the steering wheel, trying to fit into the characteristic and sometimes obvious plot twists, the viewer is left to admire the local flavor. Along the way, I remember “Bitter” and “Country of OZ”. She also picked up the trend of domestic cinema in recent years. Moreover, everyday moments are shown so correctly that equal proportions combine folk comedy and social drama. As soon as the characters are on their way, the sense of an incorrect, irrational, yet familiar reality only increases. Gradually, it becomes clear that the kaleidoscope of provincial life in the film is secondary and more mandatory than a key element of the program. However, only because of this, we can say that the film turned out.
It is surprising how laconic in the work of the debutant look hooligans, and even bandits, in the center, in fact, the ancient Greek epic. This is a completely wrong Odyssey. After leaving prison, not after a triumphant victory, the criminal, not the famous hero, returns home, where no one is waiting for him. The injuries are not a disguise, but even more serious than they appear at first glance. My wife was with one of the many bridesmaids. The son was found by accident, and he was hardly going to look for his father. However, the film is almost a classic story about the journey, as can be seen from the title. The home of the disabled becomes the symbolic end of wanderings, the coffin of all the hopes of the father that there are still those who need him. However, everything is not so simple, and it is not in space, but in time. Most often, they return when it is too late, and the search is not for love, but at least for forgiveness.
A rather promising annotation leads, however, to a film of moderate mediocrity.
What is ordinary about it: the traditional theme of crime and social deviation for Russian cinema. What is atypical: a glimpse in the main characters of positive and even sublime human feelings and intricate weaving them into the above topics.
In the picture, we observe self-interest, existential problems, destructive consequences of everyday life, unconsciousness and childhood resentments, hints at the development of attachment and forgiveness. In general, most scenes can be summarized under the name “how not to”. However, the nucleus of the picture, apparently, is an episode of the salvation of Leha Vitka, demonstrating the maximum degree of spiritual impulse of the latter and thereby confirming the ability of shantrap to humanity and generosity.
IMHO, by the standards of art, the film is unhealthy and focused on survival, and this is still a past stage.
6 out of 10
This movie tells about Vitka Chesnokov, who grew up in an orphanage. This guy looks, and behaves, like a real gas stationary gopnik. Friends naturally match him. Vitka lives in his wife’s house with his mother-in-law and son. An exemplary family man is difficult to call him. Here is a small portrait of the main character. And one day, Vitka learns that his father is alive, but not healthy. Our main character does not feel warm filial feelings for his father. And it can be understood: Leha was once engaged in the upbringing of his son in between stays in places not so remote. But Shtyr has what Vitki needs - apartment. And the housing issue, as you know, spoils people. Here and begins in places fascinating, and sometimes dramatic, the journey of father and son fully justify the title of the film.
This film is the debut in the big meter director Alexander Hunt. For the debut tape, the film looks good. Many interestingly selected angles, good camera work. The picture sometimes quite vividly describes life in the Russian hinterland somewhere far from Moscow. Some may not like this kind of hyperbolic realism. But such an artistic technique, in my opinion, is designed to generate intrigue: will the main character somehow change in such conditions by the end of the film? But waiting for a direct answer to this question is not worth it. Everyone will have to think a little and decide what kind of person Vitka is. The film is simply replete with compositions of Russian rap artists, which in turn plays very well on the entourage of the picture.
If we talk about acting, then here, of course, the father and son duo stand out, which were played by Alexei Serebriakov and Eugene Tkachuk, respectively. Serebriakov perfectly coped with the role of a patient who served a lot, a person. Evgeny Tkachuk tries to keep up with his older colleague and gives a rather convincing role of a young and obstinate resident of the outback. The duo, in my opinion, turned out quite good, and no one pulls the blanket on themselves. As for the rest of the actors involved in the film, the names on hearing can be distinguished only Alexandra Revenko from the acclaimed film Moving up, which played a cameo role as a consultant in the bank, where the main character came for a loan.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the appearance of new faces in Russian cinema is good for him. And when authors are not afraid to take up rather complex social topics and relationships between fathers and children, which will never cease to be relevant, one wants to believe that everything is not lost for Russian cinema.
Very cool directing. I just watched and rejoiced at how well it was filmed. Here goes Vitka Garlic drunk (or stoned, what difference) home, his legs crawl, and the camera behind floats, and the shooting is slowed down. All the techniques seem to be well-known, a hundred and twenty times seen, but no – here catches. When the road movie starts, it's a song. The car rolls on the road under the muson - but the muson is entourageous, and the car is small, bright red, and the bumper slams badly, and the steering wheel flexes when garlic hits it, and it does not always start... Tactile, in general. The frame is a bright red car, blue sky, green and gold field.
And Husky starts playing.
Eugene Tkachuk is very cool here. The character turned out like a drawing, but that's good - the whole movie is like that. Moves threateningly and gracefully, eyes roll out, and when the corners of the lips spread in a threatening grimace - wow, just sex.
I don’t like silver in real life – it’s too pretentious, bad arrogant. You can feel it. Like, here he played just for food, and thank you very much for it, but still this is here & #39; I'm here Actor with a capital letter and with large fees' shines through. But not fatal. It will.
There's trouble with the plot. That's what it is. Seriously, it is almost entirely in the description of the film. And the finale is open after a frankly leaked climax, the lead-up to which, by the way, is divine (the scene with a criminal in a red tracksuit in the woods, oh my God, how cool it is).
But! The beauty of this film is that it is very balanced. He himself is well aware (yes, I personalize the film, so what) that he is a director, and the plot here is not very important, but you need to look at how and what is filmed, and how the actors play deliciously, without being distracted by the search for a particularly deep for some reason meaning. If you have to, you'll find meaning. But catching here is not meaning, but aesthetics. That's it.
8 out of 10
I expected too much from this film, a lot of people advertised, but after watching it, it was just a pity for the time spent. And that's despite the fact that I've revisited a lot of this series. Leviathan is one of the favorite Russian films.
First, I would like to say that there is no interesting story. All this is reminiscent of a set of film sketches with a pronounced youthful maximalism about the vision of a closed Russia. The plot does not catch, even if there are some events here, but they are so masterfully not disclosed that after watching I can not remember some interesting moment. They're so attached, they look like a set of sketches. It's a pretty sluggish and meaningless movie.
Style. To be honest, I expected more. I didn’t notice the new movie style. Because the style has failed and there is no way out. Many of these scenes could be played really interestingly, but in the end they made just a banal and empty black woman. The music in the movies also passed by. If the mushrooms in the bar came in, everything else went against the movie itself. Style doesn't set it either, too playful. Maybe the movie looks more well-groomed, in comparison with some old things, but still everything is as empty and uninteresting. Roughly speaking, a real Vitka chesnok would listen to a different kind of music, drive a different car, work in a different place (with this very funny inflection) and behave not like a synthesis of a bad guy from Western cinema, born of the imagination of a Russian director, but like a Russian orphanage son of a criminal with his thoughts and problems. The father of a criminal would behave very differently, would wear other tattoos, would speak a different language ... I want to invite the director to Gus Crystal so that he had at least some idea of his characters. You gotta grow up. The authors do not like their characters, which results in a general tastelessness of the characters. Therefore, authors do not like themselves if they give such a result. There is no vision of heroes and themselves as a creator in cinema.
Plus, having seen many such people in life, about whom the film was made, I want to note a great underdoing in the characters. Too many stamps and little life experience of people who blinded heroes like this. People don’t know what they’re making a movie about. Too many stupid blunders and behind the ears of attracted things in the characters. They seem to be good actors and play nothing. But. I don’t remember so many silent characters in any movie. It's not the actors who are to blame, it's the ones who tell them how to play. Terribly uninteresting dialogue. Where could you make a movie if not in the dialogue of these characters? But also missed... The idea itself is interesting and very sad to look at such a failed embodiment.
Something good has to be written. Cinematography. It looks fresh. Unless it's a plus. I really liked the way it was done.
But in the end, tastelessness and meaninglessness. I don't know how I'd like it.
Anti-Brother. And again about Russian meanings. . .
For me, the film for the first time in a long time was a return to domestic cinema. Perhaps DMB in the New Year holidays does not count. In the end, the film was pleasantly surprised. I quickly look through the reviews on the results of viewing I saw a lot of criticism, but I form my conclusions exclusively on the aftertaste of viewing.
Uncomfortable, angular, annoying in many ways (particularly music) road Movie. What should be the national provincial reality? Fields, birch trees, broken roads and unanswered search for meaning. The conflict of generations between such different and similar characters.
Clichés, cartoon characters, a bit of cranberries - and yet time after time rethink, chew, grind over seemingly beaten-down national motives: endless expanses, hopelessness. Real kids on maximals, with drama, with notes of black humor, with a plot that does not leave indifferent. A closed circle, from father to son, into which we are doomed to return (to watch and make such films) until we get rid of his characters.
At one time, Brother was a film not so much about Russian Rambo, but about the disorder in this world. Vitka Garlic reminds me of something elusive. Embroiled in hatred, in his petty problems and desires, he for a few days gets into an adventure that can change something in him, help make sense of himself and his life. Can he? The open end gives you an opportunity to reason. . .
In the end: let the film is raw, in its lumpyness and not ideality there is salt. There is something unbearably Russian in it, which does not leave indifferent from the beginning to the final credits.
If we proceed from the rating, the number of positive reviews of criticism and various awards, 'How Vitka Garlic took Leha Styr to the disabled house' - one of the best Russian films of 2017. In fact, this is a vivid evidence, let’s say, of the cinematic incompetence of those who write critical articles and award award awards in Russia.
Let’s start with the script – the script is not much secondary (in fact, the author rewrote & #39; Rain Man' – in many episodes almost verbatim, while not saying a word about the source of his inspiration), he is also (in comparison with the original source) implausible and illogical. Imagine if Raymond had caught a cold in Rain Man 39, Charlie had given him an aspirin pill, and Raymond suddenly became smarter and wanted to enter the inheritance rights himself? It would be complete idiocy... which in the script ' Like Vitka Garlic...' quite present. During the action stated in the title, the Shtir has an epileptic seizure, he is pricked with an anticonvulsant (this is certainly magnesia, a drug is no more difficult than aspirin), and he suddenly finds the gift of speech (before that he did not speak at all), almost stands up (with a broken spine! before he even lay like a vegetable!) and he still suddenly turns out... a gun!!! After this, a criminal intrigue begins, which looks not just implausible (after Russian crime series, we are used to everything), but completely alien.
Directing is typical for a beginner director. Let’s say, illogical scenes on the conscience of the writer, and unnecessary scenes (that’s why there was a fight scene in the beginning), unnecessary heroes (why was there a fellow traveler at all, if this heroine does not appear further and does not affect the development of the plot in any way?), a terrifying soundtrack (especially delivers the final song) and the play of actors at the level of Livnevo crafts of the 1990s – this is already for the director. Yes, Evgeny Tkachuk is at the level - but if you want to look at such a hero, it is better to refer to 'Kremlin' Alexei Mizgireva: there and the script was better, and the direction, respectively, and Evgeny Antropov played more convincingly.
Everything else is the same level. Sometimes they praise ' well-reflected nature' - well, if nature is interesting, watch the old Soviet cinema again, ' Little Faith' or ' My name is Arlequino' where the same provincial nature is conveyed much more convincingly. I’m not talking about the fact that it is such a nature to look for – in small cities it is still found, but in large, starting somewhere with 100,000 people (where most Russians live), the people have already become somehow more cultured and entertained more meaningfully, and not as was customary in the 1990s.
In total, if you are seriously interested in domestic cinema, it is worth watching (it is desirable to compare it with ' Fargo' or ' Three Billboards...') to have an idea of the domestic film process. If not, only the title is enough, this is the most talented and original thing in the film.
Rating 1 (for name and Tkachuk) out of 10.
The knives of the bandits in the film are all somehow the same - at a discount, did they buy wholesale at a holiday sale?
“You are taking me to one place. This is where I'm expected. You're fine. It's not a sin. Me too. You know, it's time for a fucking apartment. . . ?
Making movies in Russia is difficult. And the point is not even in the frequent lack of budget, decent actors and an adequate plot, but in the search for an elementary audience for the intended. Shoot about the inhabitants of megacities - the viewer spits and says that the film is not about the "people", and life here is shown pro-Western. Shoot about the inhabitants of the hinterland - the viewer howls that again filmed "black" (even if such shock content is not there), and the people exposed cattle. And how to be in such a situation, if there is an idea of a plot about a modern “little” person? Add some humor. Entrance archetypes are turning from cartoon characters into ironic heroes of modern Russia. Our viewer after such a simple metamorphosis will take the story much warmer and will generously say that “the film is about us.”
Viktor Chesnokov is a man openly disgusting and terribly realistic. Alkash, traitor and cattle. His moral compass has been knocked down so much that he sees his wife and son only as obstacles to his endless hanging out with friends and pastime with dubious girls. Vitya wants to leave the family, but with the salary of a garbage sorter and an orphanage past, no one gives him a loan for living space. Suddenly, his father, a paralyzed recidivist with his own apartment, is announced in the city. Garlic, without thinking twice, is going to take him to a disabled house and receive a failed inheritance, but the father has one request. . .
“How Vitka Garlic drove Leha Shtyr to the disabled house” is an excellent representative of the domestic road Movie. According to the law of the genre, heroes during the journey must change, grow and find answers. With garlic, changes don’t really happen. Just to the end, it opens from a completely new side, which will touch to the depths of the soul and even slightly open the curtain of the mystery of the mysterious Russian soul. Deprived of love since childhood, obscured from animal life, unable to socialize, the guy will show his bright side for the sake of a man who all his life did not care about him. The ending is the icing on the cake of a sudden drama.
Eugene Tkachuk in the image of Garlic is unparalleled. His character in the frame just lives on. The rest of the cast up to episodic roles acts as a powerful support for the main character. Musical accompaniment is a separate topic. You can treat the new Russian turnip in different ways, but it is difficult to imagine anything else playing in the car of Garlic. Director-debutant Hunt should be humanly praised for high-quality and interesting Russian cinema.
7 out of 10
General impression: First and foremost, it's a bold movie. The way it is presented, the music and atmosphere in the film, and that the director was able to touch on the problem of father-son relations so brightly and unusually at the same time.
In the center of the plot, we have two heroes: Garlic (Eugene Tkachuk) and Ptyre (Alexei Serebryakov). Father and son. Former criminal and orphanage... Life is a boomerang, so everything in it is natural. I stick to the fact that as you do to people, as you treat them, so in time you will find yourself in such a place. Just in the tape, this pattern is clearly visible. Parents are not chosen, but can all parents raise their child? Tasks, which appear in the tape, as a parable about father and son in an interesting way in our real Russia and social problems in general. There is a lot of truth in the tape, it is not painted in the dazzling rays of the capital, but on the contrary emphasizes the contrasts of Russian nature and significant problems. Here it is the road as it is, here it is a shabby hospital of the outback, here it is a simple gopnik, here is the problem - alcoholism. But by no means, depression is not observed when viewing, there is no painful state. Rather, the road-movie introduces us to all this superficially, although indicating, but not forgetting that there are main characters in the film.
Alexei Serebryakov played Leha Shtyr, the father of Vitka. His role played well, I would even say great. I don't want to be naughty, and I don't need to be! Well done!
Eugene Tkachuk (Vytka Garlic), since I am not a big fan of Russian cinema, I had my first acquaintance with Evgeny. I wonder why I haven’t seen such actors before? Evgeny easily embodied in the role of a gopnik with boorish habits, as if I saw the hero himself. I am very happy when the actor does not stick on the screen, namely his role. It is interesting and dynamically filmed his story, as Vitka Garlic himself runs from his reality without looking back, again problems.
Now my minuses to the director. Regarding Vitki, the actor was able to convey the character of the hero with all gestures, conversations, facial expressions. It would be enough to have a couple of soundtracks, but no! This song came to the fore. For me, this is not just a minus! A huge minus! Understand when the music comes next to the movie is one thing, but when it drowns it out and comes to the fore, it doesn’t get in the way (unless it’s a musical!). When I saw it, my ears were dry. It’s not because I’m such a musician, I don’t think so. So, how could you cut or remove the tracks in everything? And thank God these songs were not throughout the picture from beginning to end, otherwise the viewer would be tired after 30 minutes of viewing. But the director was good, he was able to make the film atmospheric and characteristic of gangster Russia of the 21st century, but why characterize the hero through music, when it is CRAZY MANY THINGs. I didn't like that move at all. The second disadvantage: there is a point that is not quite clear to me, in the final scene Styr meets with other criminals and everything should have ended in a different, more real way. But the director has other thoughts, about the father and son (pink glasses? nnado?).
Who to watch: for those who want to see the road Movie from a different angle in the arms of "real paciks."
I liked the tape better than I didn't. Somewhere I was worried, somewhere I laughed. But the vitality in the tape is more than it seems at first glance. Conversations, of course, do not shine the mind, but how it is served! In the film a lot of interesting, but there are minuses, still this is the debut of director Alexander Hunt and the movie is shot quite well, I forgive the errors, but I leave an assessment
In all textbooks, it is written in cinema: distance from the hero, when the camera flies away into the distance and the hero turns into a small dot on the screen, or when the hero himself moves like the elusive avengers leaving on horses in the red sunset, means that the story ends. The viewer visually and emotionally says goodbye to the hero and the story.
So we're sitting here, 40 people: me and 39 strangers. And we have only 2 questions: how will the story end? What will the main character do? And here begins the well-known and absolutely understandable distance of the camera from the hero. The camera starts flying away. It goes very far. So much so that the hero is no longer visible on the horizon. Other than this flyby, nothing else happens. The flight lasts a minute or more. And we're still sitting there looking at the screen. We have the same questions. I don't think about what I should be driving right now, I don't remember where the toilet is in this multiplex. All this time, I've been thinking, What will the main character do? How will this story end?
The credits begin. Nobody in the room moves.
Awesome.
I understand that something unique happened in that room! Judge for yourself: this is our Russian film. A film where there are many gopniks, bandits, drunkards, and also a young mother drinking with friends in the kitchen, and a little sex and a lot of violence.
And besides, it's a debut movie! No unknown director from Khanty-Mansiysk - Alexander Khant (probably a pseudonym in honor of a small homeland).
And this movie is over, the final credits are already underway. And the whole room sits silently staring at the darkening screen. Nobody moves.
Just as in Tarkovsky: “the viewer, like the author of the film, is also a participant in the process, what happens in his head when watching is also creativity.”
Can I use this quote for most movies?
Star Wars, the Avengers? Well, what is the participant in the process, except for the consumer?
The lights are on. And only after that, we, like cockroaches from the sudden switching on of the kitchen lamp, begin to run away.
I understand that a cinematic miracle has happened. Catharsis. The magic of cinema.
After that, there will be another miracle – the film will qualify for the Oscar nomination from Russia!
This despite the fact that the film had a big problem in the creation of:
The authors announced the collection of funds for one of the stages of production and asked (insignificant for cinema) 350 thousand rubles. And during the crowdfunding company, collected (attention) 23 thousand 131 rubles.
Total failure.
Miracles happen when you risk everything for a dream that no one else sees. Sanya Hunt will confirm this to you.
Now to the content.
The first thing we can say about the film is that there is an incredible amount of bright and acidic stuff in it. Clothing, walls, cars, things, etc. How hopeless and black life can be, so brightly and acidically the director emphasizes this.
And intentionally and directly in the forehead, like bright filters in Instagram.
Red kettle, green pot, bright salad sneakers, scarlet T-shirt and green master of the protagonist. Colored tracksuits in the bratva, etc.
And at the beginning of the film there is a very cool allegory - in the first frame we are shown a huge pipe from which multicolored crumpled plastic bottles fly out to the conveyor. And then the whole film shows the same colorful “crumpled” characters. Which, like bottles, no one needs and is thrown into the trash and will be recycled. Like discarded bottles, parents don't need unwanted children. Children don't need old parents. A husband does not need an unloved wife, with mother-in-law in addition. The country does not need such "Whitki" and etc.
Music also deserves special attention. It’s very interesting and very cool!
Ulan-Udenets Huskies, Mushrooms, Pica and especially the group "Not Your Business", whose track - "I'll Be Near" plays during that very final span.
Hunt is now called Tarantino, with a Russian flavor. But for me, there is something more Scandinavian about the film. In the mood of the film is reminiscent of the old-school and cult "Push on the gas" from Denmark, 2002. The same "household" semi-criminal film on the theme of fathers and children. Director Alexander Hunt, by the way, was also brought up without a father and therefore, this topic is not easy for him.
All the characters in the film are colorful and beautiful. What is only a song under the guitar from a thief in the law of Chebourg?
The film is very accurate, bold. With an incredible color palette. With a simple, but from this original camera work, where a lot of static frames and wide-angle lens.
And a lot of cool scenes, satire, humor and paradoxes.
And perhaps the most important paradox is that the former criminal Lehu Shtyr plays a powerful actor - Alexei Serebryakov.
He is currently a Canadian citizen. Where he moved back in 2012.
According to the actor himself, the reason for the departure was, quote: “The unfavorable social situation in Russia, associated with the growth of aggression and intolerance.”
That's it. What do you think of this paradox?
By the way, the criminal authority of the Shtyr, he played skillfully.
Watch more good movies. Be part of the creative process.
How Vitka Garlic took Lech Shtyr to the disabled home ... the very case when everything is revealed in the title of the film. The movie simply answers the question of its title, but to look at this answer was extremely fascinating.
Vitka Garlic goes to work every day, gets drunk in the evenings, fights and goes home, to his unloved wife and mother-in-law. In a desire to escape from such a life, Vitka even tries to take a loan for a new apartment. They don't. In his life, Leha Shtyr appears on time - Vitka's father, who abandoned him as a child. The pin is already at death and, if Vitka manages to fuse his father into the disabled house, his apartment.
A good debut of Alexander Hunt in places will make you laugh, and in places will make you sad. The picture looks very juicy, there are no sagging moments, I do not want to miss a single frame. The soundtrack is cool, too. Playing mostly selected Russian rap perfectly emphasizes the atmosphere of modern hop.
Actors Evgeny Tkachuk and Alexei Serebryakov perfectly complement each other in the frame. If everything is clear with Serebyakov - the talented actor played another talented role, then I want to say a little more about Tkachuk. A huge part of the charisma in the picture brings him. His uneasy role of combining a young, nervous Gopnik with the smallest manifestations of his father is commendable.
In general, the film shows us the realities of modern Russia, doing it beautifully and qualitatively.
8 out of 10
I don't know where to start. To say that a movie is a fire is to say nothing. All right. Starting with the idiotic expression of Serebriakov’s face, ending with the lameness of the village vertigostok. Initially tuned in to watching a wild comedy, and did not lose, laughed like a horse half of the film. Involuntarily poked his tooth, caught himself thinking that I was sitting on cardboards and wanted beer and seeds.
If the director wanted to show a drama about the difficult relationship between father and son, or to shred the ruska in the best traditions of the liberal intelligentsia, then nothing came of it. It was a funny comedy about two freaks. No matter what happens on the screen, they are not sorry. Their inadequacy causes only laughter. This is a hyperbole film of Russian reality, not the truth itself. This is an amazing grotesque about human bastardism in two bright and a dozen secondary hypostases.
And even though the plot had a few idiotic twists, a lot of understatement, this film does not spoil (except for the ending). The story and the idea are great! I have to think of that. Actors are great. The feeling that these are not actors who got used to the role, and the shooting invited real Gopniks. Everything is very organic and designed in the same style. Only the ending was upset, for that point down. It seems that the director gave himself a chance for the second part. What the hell is that? And if not, let the viewer decide for himself how it ended.
But most importantly, in my opinion, this film is a completely new format for our cinema. Not a crime comedy, no. I don’t even know what to call it...maybe it’s fun. Only from the paintings of the master I wanted to hang myself, and here I laugh like a horse.
In general, it is necessary to watch. We now have an acute shortage of domestic quality cinema, and this is it.
8 out of 10
At the beginning of 2018, a unique story happened to me twice. First 'Mother!' Aronofsky, and then this A. Hunt movie made me revisit them the next day. If this is clear with the first, then how could such a thing happen to ' a hundred thousandth' a Russian film about ' dirt, fear and nothing human'? And it’s not at all likely that I was able to formalize my thoughts about the film only after a couple of months. I constantly elusively lacked some nuance to understand exactly what Hunt makes me constantly return to the story of Vitka Garlic. The missing thought link I got from an interview with A. Serebryakov, where he said that in the end he played death. Everything fell into place. This film is not about garlic, but about garlic.
Vitka and Leha are very interestingly selected externally. Plus, Evgeny Tkachuk performs double work in the frame - plays a gopnik-boy and diligently copies facial expressions and movements 'Dads' Serebriakova. It’s like seeing one man and his young reflection. Thanks to this technique, as well as a brilliant script prologue in the first 15 minutes of the film, both main characters are very widely revealed at once. Looking at the paralyzed Pits, we immediately see what he was like in his youth. Accustomed not to give accounts for his actions, to lead a selfish raunchy life, Leha is still confident that he is in authority with others. Faced with the hatred of his son, he says to him: ' I will prove to you!' and suffers another fiasco, being unnecessary and the second family. More, and even his enemy turns away from him. The result is a forgotten closet and worn pajamas of the Invalides house. The payback that overtook the Slut is monstrous. To be unnecessary to anyone with a living wife, two children, noble 'friends'. When nobody cares about you at all. And it seems to me that Vitka's reflections in the finale are not a decision to come back. It's an awareness of the repetition of the path. The Stick final and the Vitka final, too. After all, their lives in this segment are identical.
Isn’t it wonderful that a full-water oasis has finally appeared in the Russian scenario desert?
To all this it is absolutely necessary to add your own visual style, emphasized by a pleasant palette. Eyes are no less interesting than thinking. Of course, the ears are not envious here, but as a musical accompaniment, I am sure this is exactly what you need.
There is no point in describing the duet of two beautiful actors. The film’s task depended largely on them. And the characters turned out to be endowed with a lot of distinctive features, with elaborated character, lexicon, movements and intonations. Separately from the cast I want to highlight Konstantin Gatsalov. He has a very, very colorful character. I've even seen one in my life. Very similar.
As a result, this movie was in the list of my favorite works with a lot of moments that I want to review again.
8 out of 10
I like to watch the film, especially if it is made by a young director. Under conditions of superstress and superresponsibility, a young director, as a rule, manages to grab a thin thread of pain and begin to unwind this tangle with all the sincerity he is only capable of. Talented directors manage to put tricky questions, take the viewer to "weak".
Trying on the situation of Vitka Garlic is scary. For the most part, we still happily avoided the orphanage, but not everyone can boast of prosperous families. And the question of forgiveness and acceptance of parents, I am sure, is before almost everyone. But how? How can you forgive someone who robbed you of your childhood? Who betrayed you, who mocked you. How can you forgive the disappointment in your own parent, realize that your father is an alcoholic, a bandit and a scumbag? How can you accept that you do not need your parents?
You have noticed that children love their parents no matter what. Everybody forgives. They always hope for a little attention and tenderness. Often in vain. I wonder if this "forgiveness" has an expiration date? I guess not. And Vitka Garlic, before our eyes, turns from an arrogant, rude, tough type into an offended suffering person – a son. You sympathize with him (here’s a guy who got into a bind), when a semi-paralyzed father unexpectedly finds himself, and throughout their joint journey to the disabled home you wonder why Vitka suddenly begins to help her father?
The director does not give answers, the ending of the film is open. Some storylines remained unfinished, which in general gives the impression of a bit of raw directorial work, as if there was not enough time or skill to think through everything to the smallest detail. It's like watercolor without clear details.
The case when you get tired of the film for 10 minutes and watch the rest purely on principle.
The film is extremely painful, while not rich in either events or dialogue. A much-vaunted acting. It's a twist at Tkachuk. Is that a good game now called? He copied the manner of speech well, not for the role of the lucky person, but for the role of the person who is taken to the disabled home. Silverbryakov seems to play the same role in every movie. (Moreover, he seems to be playing himself.) And in this film, the invariable fleur of such a deep-thinking wise alcoholic philosopher is somehow out of topic to the declared character.
The characters are all wildly cartoonish. It's kind of clichéd. In places where anything happens, their actions are very easy to predict. Let me be clear: I love realism in movies. Let it be disgusting, let it be disgusting, let there be gopniks, drunkards, bandits, etc. Just make it believable, please. To get goosebumps from looking into that mirror. In the same film, we see a desire to ride on this topic, but a complete lack of ideas, thoughts and experiences that could be reflected. I mean, it's just a blanket.
The sound deserves separate words, of course, would it be fun if the director made the sound not just the music that plays the opnik-main character in the car, but somehow connected it with the drama of the film? Nope? As a result, just stuffed fashionable slag type Husky to satisfy the younger audience.
Verdict: no film and absolutely not worthy of the hype around it.
1 out of 10
Festival Russian cinema is a familiar observation of the difficulties of everyday life, work, and love, poverty, disease and evil fate. Road Movie with the underground title "How Vitka Garlic drove Leha Styr to the home of the disabled" does not tear patterns: the film is an embodied stereotype. But the film has nothing to do with independent and other Russian cinema.
The first experience of the director Alexander Khant (a graduate of the workshop Karen Shakhnazarova) in a feature-length film, filmed in cooperation with the director of VGIK Vladimir Malyshev .
In the center of the plot is a violent representative of factory workers Vitka nicknamed Garlic. “The boy” grew up in an orphanage, as a result of which, his youthful anger affected adult and family life – Vitka’s wife is not faithful, he is indifferent to his son, relations with his mother-in-law are heated. And here is another “lucky case” when a criminal father appears on the horizon, chained to bed. In order to get his father’s house, and begin cohabitation with an arrogant and vulgar maid, Vitka decides to take Leha to the last refuge – to a disabled home. This concept shrinks into a fast wheel of existence. A wild, hated antics develops into a winding path full of dangers and adventures. The open final with the intersection leaves a big question for the viewer. On which road will the hero turn – on a crooked and embittered path or will he be swept by a sudden attack of spiritual heroism?
In terms of accuracy and understanding of the main characters, the actors Alexei Serebryakov and Eugene Tkachuk are simply magnificent, as if all the stormy life of the 90s was reflected on their faces.
But the strongest side of the picture is the original imagery. Stylish and inventive shots, in the tradition of indie cinema. The film is charged with a fair amount of acid, built on angles and large, too large, plans. The director in a stylish way advertises the texture of the province. A rusted plant, an old minivan, destroyed slums, dusty roads, free fields - create an atmosphere Russian Wes Anderson, there is also involved the "power of revelers" in a local nightclub, which American directors did not even dream of.
The only spoonful of tar in a barrel of honey remains ill-considered and incomplete dialogue. However, thanks to the inept acting ability to express feelings with emotional “tools”, the film goes into the narrative that certain conditions in society create retardation of speech and muteness. And the most frank expressions create a long sound list, which sounds from the columns like a mad heart, echoing the sinful jubilation of Vitka Garlic. Russian rap is loud, senseless and ruthless. Moreover, these tracks do not cause disgust in the viewer, but accompany the overall picture.
"How Vitka Garlic drove Leha Styr to the home of the disabled" tempting offer for a sophisticated viewer to stick his head out of his trench and try to laugh, sink, puzzle over the outside world.
Guys, the main thing is fashionable! This is the slogan of aspiring Russian filmmakers.
Justify the bazaar? It’s a good one.
The most important thing in the cinema is the script, so they say at least in the art world, but here alas we are immediately in the red.
It's like a boy's parable, or the text of some local rapper. In the storyline, the leap and catharsis occur at the very end, thereby preventing and preventing the characters from playing all the components of these actions.
The final is crumpled, according to the most frequent mistakes of students of the director's faculty.
Next, we go to how the already weak scenario was staged - there is a disclosure of heroes, but unfortunately only in external manifestations. I am talking about the actor Evgeny Tkachuk, he with a good plastic psychophysics and charismatic attitude, unfortunately, here he “accumulated” – overplayed. And you can see it, just by means of Alexei Serebriakov. A huge mistake of the director is to take a mastodon movie and next to a novice actor, because against the background of a good actor, a bad one is always visible.
We understand, of course, that it is a collection of all the clichés and images of such children from the orphanage, but after all, the film claims to be a reality, a complete comparison with the life of our province. From this and discord in the further game and acting, when Serebryakov keeps the bar higher, and Tkachuk to get it - begins to swear more and spit seeds. But by the way, the other actors of the second plan pleased, especially without claims.
Well, with the actor did not work out and the script pumped up, but the most important thing remains in general - the director's vision, but everything here is very weak. Directing means both cameramen and composers and everything that makes up the form of a film. Of course, we must not forget that this is the debut of Alexander Hunt, and we hope that he will show himself brighter and deeper. But everything is simple, the cliché hangs on every frame, there is a mistress - a young hot, there is a wife - bad and boring, her mother is necessarily evil, mercantile goals for everyone hang in the air, everything is exaggerated, the end is completely unfounded and the line of the hero Serebryakova is not revealed, it is not clear from what you, Vitka suddenly felt, if you are so cool and vindictive the whole film was, where did this cool thief with a chain come from, why he also got demoted, what a stupid idea with a new sofa, who is to blame in the end, who is to blame, but in the end, who I have many questions left.
But I might not have been picky about opening lines, etc., if all this life had been done from a more interesting angle. And then from this constantly bulging black Russian, it is sickening to watch domestic cinema. Balabnov has already shown everything in the cargo 200, enough.
The conclusion is that they wanted a style of yes “rassianism” more, and in the end a long clip for the Husky came out.
But I am grateful for the opportunity to see Alexei Serebryakov in the frame and for the stage with his mother-in-law on the balcony.
2 out of 10
Once upon a time there was Vitka Garlic, an orphan from childhood. Stars from the sky was not enough, but was not mud under the feet of a boy. He had a wife and a son, boy friends, and a red car. He lived in distress and resentment. And then one day his father, Leha Shtyr, appeared. The father is not easy, ex-con, and even paralyzed. This father would have been superfluous if not for his house. And without hesitation, on the advice of the girl Larisky, he decided to give his father to the disabled house. I loaded it in the trunk and took it 1000 km across Russia-mother.
Yes, it is a fairy tale (just pay attention to the title). This is the only way to treat this picture. One should not find fault with the credibility of the characters and the reality surrounding them. The fairy tale should be bright (sometimes to the detriment of realism) and spectacular, and this here at least add up. At the beginning there is a feeling of overkill with the grotesque, and it seems that you are watching another clumsily concocted work of a graduate of the director's faculty, who has never seen the outbacks and gopniks living there, but then everything seems to begin to fit into the framework of style. This style, or rather about the director’s handwriting, should be accepted and loved, making a discount on the debut in a big movie. Before this tape, Hunt (director) had only short films, the actual plume from them and enveloped Vitka Garlic. It is impossible not to notice the haste and some unintentional understatement, which does not reach the capacious metaphorical, but still makes timid attempts.
Does this tale have a moral? There's a hint, a lesson for good guys! Perhaps this is enough in order not to slide into a low-grade monosyllable action.
The film may not roll for a very simple reason: it is hype. And hype, as you know, is ambivalent. Connoisseurs with snobbish inclinations are likely to be alienated and disappointed by this message of the creators. But what to do, modernity "connoisseurs" do not feel, or rather do not want. It is important to note that the film is aimed at the (young) viewer, devoid of prejudice. Or rather, such a viewer will fully feel the idea of the director and enjoy the picture and music, which in places completely makes the film a hype video clip, and this is beautiful.
P.S. I would like to mention the final song of the band Not Your Business, which this film opened for me.
8 out of 10
“If you need someone, you will live, and not need them, you will die.”
Recently, it is often heard that “directors have been transferred to Russia.” In my opinion, a spectator, a thinking spectator, a viewer who can read between the lines has been translated in Russia. The viewer who wants to see on the screen is not a spectacular picture (to which he goes to the cinema between trips to the store for new clothes), but quality and depth.
I haven't seen a movie like this in a long time. I'll tell you right away, it attracted the name. Long, almost screaming. Even fabulous. On the contrary, a fairy tale with a minus sign. But in this fairy tale there are no heroes and fabulous princesses. There are characters with broken fates, ordinary people, our neighbors, friends, perhaps friends.
Everything in this movie is true. From acting, staging, directing work to the latest detail. The music changes with the mood of the film. Modern rap changes to lyrical melody towards the end of the picture.
The film takes place against the background of landscapes typical for summer Russia. In the center of the plot is the relationship between father and son, in fact, completely strangers to each other people. Well conveyed cyclicality, parent-child relationship. Growing up, the son becomes a kind of repetition of his cruel father-criminal. During the film, we did not see that the young father of Vitka Garsnock communicated with his son. This is not surprising, Vitka, a wild orphan, was not a son, and therefore did not learn to be a father. In his own father, he justly sees only the man who broke his life. But life brings two heroes together. They go on the road and on the road, face the foreheads. Circumstances add up so that Vitka recognizes Leha Styr from the other side. And finding something good in his father, he begins to look for it in himself, going from "I will kill my father" to "I will save my father's life." From the first minutes, the main character is shown negatively, but at the end you can see his transformation. It may not be shown to the end, even if it has just begun, but it is there and this is important.
Alexander Hunt gave the viewer the opportunity to reflect on what should be the final of this criminal drama, so in the end puts the ellipsis. The message of the director is read: "If someone needs someone - you live, and not need - you die."
The movie turned out well. Subtle, ironic, with the right message, because the plot of the picture is honest, realistic. Movies like this are in short supply.
I believe it is a film about primitive, subconscious and fundamental human feelings, instincts, values. Not bad, not even good. Especially for these circumstances, for these living conditions. For our conditions.
The people in the movie have values. Not like the audience. Enough to risk his life to save his biological father, who owes him nothing. Not enough to take care of him.
He is not obliged to return, he has already proved that in such difficult situations he can act like a Man.
Many of those who watched the film would have taken care of their father, but would have gone to hell to save him?
However much the popular opinion may differ about the plausibility of the picture, I would still venture to assume that no one is right. After all, there is no unambiguous criterion for determining the true Russian provincial, there is no one specifically for the manner of his behavior. How can we know for sure, until we visit a village 40 km from the city, is this really true? I'll say, "Cartoon, layout!" A friend will say, "It's a bit of an exaggerated truth!" Another will say, "The full truth!" And everyone will be right. And so it is necessary that everything was clear from the first frame, so that it was clear that there are among our contingent and, say, scum, and nicknames are still heard, and fraudulent schemes are muddled, and the nineties make themselves known. It is, really is, only Alexander Hunt all this banditry and gaggy interiors exist in a bright, nicely designed wrapper. That's the point.
And the problem with the film is actually something else entirely: understatement. It seems as if, steaming about a juicy picture, the team completely forgot about the characters, the storyline and its integrity. I agree with the majority of them.
In the rest - everything has already been said: the acting game is worthy of applause, the soundtrack - getting into the point and into the heart of every young rap fan. And I advise everyone to watch the film, at least in order to answer the question: is this movie showing us the real Russia?
7 out of 10
It was impossible not to write a review - too normal play of some actors and a super cameraman, a beautiful picture, atmospheric shit that conveys the mood of modern young people, but. But the script was written by a person who knows about life in Russia only through the Internet and verbal horror stories, in any case it is a major from an elite school or a hipster who grew up abroad.
The beginning, from the point of view of historicism and the surrounding reality, is a complete fail, so to portray, disfigure a provincial gopnik, make Renton out of him from ' on a needle', some semi-poker, who in any district will be lowered by schoolchildren from the ninth grade - for me this is a personal insult (probably this is just what made me write a review). When he couldn’t tell a thief who he was, it was cognitive dissonance for me. I grew up in the 90s and know how cunning, cruel and mean real gopniks, how they allegedly scour their ' thieves' ' concepts', more than once I had to deal with them, in principle, about five or six years, before the advent of the Internet, I lived in their kingdom (it is the kingdom that should be called this system thrown on the cities of the turn of the century) and how idiotically they are depicted in the film, as if telling me that I could not cope with a couple of bully idiots. No, it was a system where anyone who did not obey it was tried to make an outcast, a freak and a creature with no rights.
There are also idiotic dialogues. It is strange that realizing that the film will be shown throughout the country, no one from the creative team hinted to the director of the film as a whole about their level. Basically, they make sense of situations, but real people don’t talk like that unless they read a stupid script, of course. One could even say that these moronic dialogues ruined the film (because most of the people who watch it don’t know anything about goats and don’t care about realism), it’s a real shame. I’m very interested in how the person who wrote the lyrics for the film looks into the eyes of the rest of the team.
Overall, I liked what I was watching. It is naive and stupid, but in some places it is very beautiful. But what I heard was just blood from the ears.
Only that movie evokes joyful feelings that were filmed independently. The story of Shtyr and Garlic, in general reminiscent of “Rain Man”, promised to be a kind of wave of lightness in Russian cinema, which tries to take its head out of the sand and refresh itself. The sharp start, dynamics, energy of the frame, the brightness of the acting game at first really amaze their viewer, after which expectations pass into the category of some confidence, which, of course, is a mistake.
No, in fact, this is the most natural, true author's film, with its own rhythm and shooting, with its own life and strategy, its own approach, its own style and ingenuity, which incredibly go from personal color to a collection of stupid stereotyping. And she does not have in spite of all logic due destruction. Originally intended to be a farce, the picture does not change its character, without reaching the point of absurdity and maintaining a wild superficial criminal fabric. Fables here do not become fables, but look like reality, which immediately kills the wave of lightness on the heels, which makes kitsch youth become an iceberg on the way to criminal seriousness. The film freezes between the approach to comicality and the stupidity of weapons, after which its philosophy and attitude to it change by one hundred and eighty.
Now the whole movie is a clot of total discomfort. Billed as a road movie, the painting turns away from its main purpose - the emergence of a sense of freedom and travel. Here the trip of the main characters tritely want to avoid and get out of this pretty car at the very beginning of the way. And this is not just the fault of fellow travelers. Why does the eventuality along the way look like nothing more than a structural scrap, avoiding the disclosure of heroes and not in the least affecting their fate?
The traveler disappears as sharply as she appeared, the family is not needed by anyone, even the director, so without having time to show her appearance, she shrinks into a tangle and spits out the heroes. And entering into the business of old ties and tattooed faces of a male unkempt nationality is nothing more than a hasty turning of the road, a barrier, when he ran out of either means or a desire to look like a road movie.
The worst thing is that in the picture, in the midst of dynamics and power, in the midst of rabid enthusiasm, there is nothing explainable into which this enthusiasm could be transformed. Why would an operator look for new angles when the characters are the same? Why try to make a movie bold and exciting, understandable to those who do not watch this movie, if silence in the film is more expensive than gold? Why go when the whole display of identity is still in place?
Perhaps some of this picture will seem close in spirit, and someone quite far from understanding. What do we know about life in the wilderness? The tape tells us quite well about the hinterland of our large and immense Russia, there are its own rules and laws. And it's not a rainbow life in a big city.
Synopsis: A film about an unloved boy, whom we first hate, then begin to understand and in the end we are compassionate. His name is Vitka Garlic. The story of how Vitka Garlic finds her father, a former convict, and the current cripple. With the idea of assigning an apartment, he decides to take him to a disabled home. On the way, of course, there are difficulties and interesting details ...
The topic of fathers and children is quite familiar and not new. But in general, the film is quite original and for me it seemed new.
It is difficult for us to understand orphanage children who were abandoned by their parents or died much worse and it is difficult for Vitka to understand at first until you see the completeness of the picture. The hardened heart of Vitka, as a result of upbringing and a shard of a terrible past from childhood. There must be good-naturedness and humanity in all of us, but some of us just need a spark to light this fire of good-nature. And even in the seemingly lost love of a father and son, there is still hope.
“Who needs it, if not us?” And after this phrase, I feel really sorry for my father, because it is true. Who will need us in old age if not our own children, except for rare cases of guardianship of our close friends and relatives. And some children in our time it is easier to hand over their elderly parents to a nursing home or a disabled home. Fortunately, there are few.
Operational work is very well combined with the overall style of the film. Although there are very dubious angles, where it is not very clear why they are needed at all, creating a feeling of some strange intricacy. I like the portraits of the characters.
The cast is well selected, except for half of the secondary roles that played their roles rather unconvincingly. Of course, I want to note Vitka ( Eugene Tkachuk) and his father Lehu Shtyr (Alexei Serebryakov), everything is fine with them, they played their characters perfectly as for me and yes, they are really very similar as father and son.
Script. As I said above, in general, the film turned out to be quite original if we consider it as a film about fathers and children, but as another film about gopniks, it may seem to you already worn out, with all these showdowns of “real guys” from the district, but since the main message of the film is not about this, we can say that I have no special claims to the script, watching the film is interesting and even not boring, everything is fine here.
Soundtrack. Just my opinion, but I think with the soundtrack lazy and did not find really suitable compositions for full penetration into the film. Although perhaps the soundtracks are very suitable as a description of our characters, especially "rap" for boys from the outback. But as for the film as a whole, I did not like the tracks at all, sorry. .
In summary, what can I say? The rather promising debut of Alexander Hunt interested me, although you know, as an ordinary viewer, I am skeptical of the Russian tape, but here I will say everything is fine, I liked the film.