21mhz

Those who expect a sequel to the original 'Das Boot' movie/miniseries should be warned: the gritty realism is not reproduced by this series (though all technical details and costumes look authentic to me). Instead, it delivers everything bad and good that is expected from a modern big budget TV series: an exercise in how many conflicted characters and incredible plot twists can the writers fit around a setting. In this case, the setting happens to be an U-boat or two and the Nazi-occupied port of la Rochelle. I don't think the show strays into historic revisionism like some people claim, but the trend of spicing up World War II as an adventure setting, also seen in 'World on Fire', is lamentable.

The film is about life and love in modern urban Russia. A few young inhabitants of St.Petersburg - quick-witted and handsome designer Misha, vocabulary-challenged architect Alya, and dependable ex-airborne Oleg - start a business decorating interiors, while sharing a characteristically Piter semi-squat. Misha begins dating their customer Tata, a charming and eccentric woman who at first appears to be the pampered mistress of a wealthy man. From there, a romantic story unfolds that bears resemblance to Remarque's 'Three Comrades', where friendship, humor, love and suffering create a vivid chemistry. All the characters are distinct and for the most part likable each in their own right (except they booze all the time!). The movie presents a view on society and volatile life of young people in one of Russia's most fabulous cities.

If you've read anything by Vladimir Sorokin, who co-wrote the script to this movie, you'll know the feeling. Grotesque outbursts that mock the typical realistic manner of storytelling and the literary cliches associated with the certain "brand" of writing tradition and/or ideology, carefully reconstructed only to be ruined in the absurd.

This movie skims over Russian urban epos of the past 30 years, telling the story of a Soviet automobile, the first VAZ-2101 ever issued, a "people's car" that was in fact a cheap and ugly Fiat knock-off -- and its owners through the time. From a revered status item in the luxury-strapped Soviet reality, to a ridiculed relic from the grim past, through a Politburo member, a physicist, a KGB agent, a prostitute, a gambler, an avant-garde artist, an alcoholic car mechanic, a nouveau riche -- the car suffers through comic and thrilling events of their lives, ruined and restored many times. Think of all the "historical" episodes in Forrest Gump, only woven around a car instead of a retard. Perhaps you'll find a ton of stuff that seem outlandish or impenetrable, but it's instantly recognized by the people who lived through that place and time, as it plays on stereotypes and funny stories etched in their common memory (though, clearly, some background notes are added for the movie to be "exportable"). There are also several brief appearances of well-known cultural figures: Sorokin and Dykhovichny both appear in tiny roles; Petlura, a midget from the art posse, pops all over the movie; the "alcoholic pop" singer Sergey Shnurov plays, well, the drunkard who sticks a knife into the fat businessman. All this spiced with trademark Sorokin's wickedness and fixations (worms, urine, recurring phrases). Excellent stuff for those who dig, or wants to dig, modern Russia and, dare I say, post-modernist humor.