Yady, ili vsemirnaya istoriya otravleniy

I saw this movie on the Russian Film Week which is fortunately becoming a regular yearly event. Otherwise we do not have too many chances to see Russian movies in Hungary. Although most of my countrymen do not really mind this ("we had enough Soviet movies earlier" they claim) but I do, because the few Russian movies I have seen since the changes have all been excellent and so is this movie.

The starting scene was fantastic and it raised my expectations to a level that the rest of the movie was not able to reach. Still, in overall this is a very imaginative movie with a lot of extremely funny gags. Its humour is typically sarcastic and its surrealism is rather imaginative. (Russians - their literature and their films - have always been strong in these...) If you can tolerate slow-paced movies then you will enjoy this one, assuming that you have a chance to see it in your local cinema.

Some people around our hero are a problem, but he does not know how to get rid of them. Things change when he meets a mysterious poison artist, who apparently knows thousands years of dark secrets as if he was there, and he tells those stories... You will witness the famous family of Borgia and many other historical celebrities.

I would like to invite visitors to see pictures from the movie and watch a detailed trailer at RussArt.com. Those who read Russian can find more materials useful: reviews, actor biographies, articles, etc.

Pictures: http://russart.com/?moviepictures&mid=48

Trailer: http://russart.com/?movietrailer&mid=48

Another well-recognized work of the chief director in Mosfilm Karen Shahnazarov. As usual Karen gives very absurd and bright story-line that shows ordinary problems in a very special ironic way. This is not a horror film it looks more like comedy, but it touches upon horrific ideas that come to mind in state of jealousy. The main character is a young actor, whose fat wife a music teacher betrays him with a neighbour who works at meat-plant. The main character is very shy and noble person he acts really awesome. While his wife pushes him away he goes to a club and meets a stranger-pensioner who turns out to be caring a lot of poison with him all the time. He reads main character's mind immediately and tells him how he poisoned his wife-betrayer in the past. The pensioner persuades his new young friend to revenge by means of poisons and the actor agrees. The film gives brief description of poisoning in the history of human race. The youngman becomes a member of poison-club, where people from the past, who poisoned somebody gather together to have a big poison party. While the young actor plans his revenge his wife and her lover also make a plan to poison him and his new love . This becomes big absurd after all. This unusual and rather expensive film includes a lot of costumes and great dialogues. The film even has some gore. While the director describes some historical moments of Italian Cesare he shows how great emperor cured himself after being poisoned. A huge bull without entrails serve Cesare as a blood bath.

From someone who sees alot of quality cinema -- this one is fantastic. Incredibly creative, comic, and a far more amazing cinematography/production design than 99% of big budget films. Spectacularly rich historical scenes.

Nice little movie about poisons and famous people being poisoned in the history of the world. It is quite funny at times and entertaining. It mixes our present time and the unfortunate relationship of one couple with historical flashbacks to the famous people poisoned by their siblings and rivals. I would recommend it to people who are looking for something a bit different from their cinema experience.