Kitoboy

One of the best films out of venice and my personal favorite. The film has an impressive mise en image and mise en scene, blends documentary and fiction filmmaking while constantly engaging the audience through the characters and the absurdity of the story. From all of the films I've seen in Venice and considering that I was part of the Giornate degli Autori Jury this year, and that this was our choice, I would say that "The Whaler Boy" is one of the most ambitious films I've seen in a long long time. It will take you by the hand the minute it starts with a purely magical first shot and the joyous yet melancholic ending.

I can't believe reviews! Did I watch an another movie? Cause Kitoboy is so so bad. Scenario is so bad. Dialogues are bad. No acting. No music (just one really bad song) It's so boring and totally meaningless. Waste of time. I hate it.

I really liked Lyoshka's sensitive world, with which you can empathize pretty quickly.

The director Philipp Yuryev delivers a great movie!

There's not much here about whaling, but then there's not much about anything else either. You could almost believe that a dimwitted inarticulate village boy would become fixated on an internet fantasy, given how empty and boring all the "real life" scenes are. Anyway, that provides the trigger for a minimal bit of plot where he wanders off for a while and nothing happens. There's not much dialog, but what there is is filled with long pauses and staring into space, and almost every shot is drawn out and over-extended, seemingly just to lengthen the film. It does succeed, though, in portraying the mind-numbing tedium of a rural Russian backwater, so two stars for that.

A far from uncommon problem as adolescence draws to a close and the surroundings that have protected become a prison; big city or on the outskirts of nowhere, the only difference being that one makes scratching that itch a lot easier. Share the frustrations of Leshka, as online love and the American dream are dangled so tantalisingly close and yet remain so far away and completely out of touch.