Sto dney do prikaza

At first sight, comparisons with Tarkovsky and Sokurov are inevitable. However, although this film is visually striking and very atmospheric, it seems to lack balance between the cinematographic and the narrative parts. Watching this movie, feels a little like watching a slide-show by a great photographer.An interesting experience, great to look at, but something is missing. Some parts are obviously dreams or hallucinations, but then I'm still not sure what statement the director intended to make by these parts. Maybe it's all intended to be a dream, and it does indeed have nightmarish qualities. At times I felt like I was watching life shortly before and/or after a nuclear catastrophe. Despite my criticism about "the missing plot" I can't seem to get this movie out of my mind, so it might be brilliant after all. If not, it's still an interesting look "backstage" at how life may have been for soldiers in the red army.

This is one of those enigmatic 'artistic' films beloved of intellectuals and elitists that will mystify everyone else due to the internalised nature of its narrative (if it can be called such) which makes its meaning virtually impenetrable. In fact trying to describe it is like trying to describe a colour to a blind man: each scene is its own little story that bears little or no relation to those that precede or follow it. People die, but we never learn why. People stare at each other without talking. There's a lot of nudity, and this being a film about soldiers, much of it is of a homoerotic nature. Oh, and there's lots of cameras – so they're probably quite meaningful, although I couldn't say why. In fact I think I might have been watching the out-takes.

This is the first film I have seen where there is no plot. Apparently that is the plot???? A friend of mine who did his military service in the Soviet Army during the late 1980s said that the film's portrayal of the uniforms and barracks etc are very accurate. There was however no apparent mention of the dedovshina endemic in much of the Russian Army. Dedovshina (Law of the grandads) is the bullying (often very violent) of the new soldiers or dushi (spirits) by the older soldiers known as deds or dembels (grandads).

Many have commented on the supposed homoerotic scenes in the communal bath or banya, where the soldiers are seen washing each other down. According to my friend this portrayal of the banya is accurate, however the homoerotic interpretations are NOT!!! In the USSR homosexuality was considered to be a mental illness, and in the Soviet military it was an imprisonable offence. In addition there is substantial and often violent homophobia in Russia, nowhere more so than in the military. According to my friend if you were even suspected of being gay, let alone getting turned on by the sight of your fellow soldiers naked in the banya you would not have left the banya alive - literally.....BE WARNED!!!! All in all this is a very odd film. There is clearly some deep an inner meaning in it somewhere, but I'm afraid it was a bit too deep and inner for me.

...but a slow-paced nightmare for the rest of us. I can't say the film "tries" to be artistic...it really is. The director clearly has been influenced by the works of Pierre et Gilles (consider this was created in 1991...just before the actual fall of the Soviet Union). The entire film seems to meander between several artistic/iconic (no pun) moments; almost like "a day in the life of a soviet soldier" if it were a gay man watching/picking out the scenes. The writer and directer make a very weak attempt at satire of "the system", but it just all falls short, since there is no real "message" here, other than someone really likes looking at young boys in (and out of) uniform. Once again, A for artistic vision, but it doesn't work as a film.

only a poem. bitter, cold, honest image against reality, precise verdict about an institution. in same measure, an aesthetic delight. because it seems be at the border between dream and reality.because, behind eroticism or humiliations, it preserves the flavor of Paradjanov , Sokurov or Tarkovsky work, the fundamental lines from war films and the precise verdict about a political system. more than a film, it is a wake up. a strange story from East, aggressive and delicate, terrible and useful. the force of images does, in many scenes, the story only a pretext. and the feeling after the final credits remains long time as convincing warning/testimony in the memory of the viewer.