DZIDZIO Contrabass

If you'd watch the prequels to Dzidzio's music videos, you'll see that his style and desire to excel on Big screen were growing over last decade. This tongue-in-cheek but very positive comedy is pleasantly different from many counterparts from Ukraine and its neighbors by being at the same time positive and entertaining.

Its portrayal of beautiful rural outback, where people are poor, but cheerful, is like the best of E.Kusturica's movies but without politics and the "sur-" affix to realism. It is a family movie, but with intricate sexual references; it is about the religion and smuggling roles in the borderlands' life at the same time.

The only setback may be the language, which is very particularly heavy on regional accent and even for a Ukrainian it would not be simple to understand, not speaking of translation... The score is undeservedly low because of strong competition from 40 other Ukrainian releases this year, but it is much better than most of FSU comedies, e.g. from Armenia, or Baltic states, which seem to enjoy the support form corresponding diaspora votes. I rate it 4/5