Chuzhie

Five American doctors drive (with neither guides nor translators) through the desert of an unnamed Arab land to test a recently created vaccine on children in a remote village, ostensibly motivated by good will. A group of Russians (a surgeon and sappers clearing mines) is juxtaposed on a background of local Arabs. The Americans' selfish motivations quickly become clear. They speak about "the team" and "the children", but each is obsessed with himself and his inadequacies. Americans' well-known philanthropy is revealed to be crassly self- serving, just as the cynical audience always suspected. They are completely, stupidly culturally insensitive.

*Tom (Mark Adam) is the team leader—narrow, brittle, humorless, and dogmatic, he wants to Americanize the primitive Arab world. Sterile, he is unable to provide the child his wife wants. When the Arab guard deliberately leaves his gun next to Tom while he goes and rapes Tom's wife, Tom isn't man enough to defend his honor. Instead, when Tom's wife is later drinking with a severely wounded Russian surgeon, Tom attacks and kills the elderly and helpless surgeon with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

* Jane (Scarlett McAlister), Tom's red-haired wife, longs for a child, so she seduces the grim Arab guard and rendezvous with him repeatedly to copulate in various poses, finally to be violently raped whereupon she gets up smiling (after our initial shock, we realize she finally got what she wanted) and later to give birth to a black child (shown in the movie).

* Miss Stone (Kathleen Gati), a sexually frustrated old maid, vaccinates children like an automaton. As warm and compassionate as her surname suggests, she expresses her feeling for the children by singing them "Row, row, row your boat" ENDLESSLY, mercilessly accompanying herself on an accordion, which the Arab boys eventually urinate on.

* Mike (Neil Patrick Stewart) is the passive white gay partner: shrill, prone to hysterics, and desperately afraid that he is getting older and unattractive. He wants to adopt an Arab boy.

* Bill (Jeff Grays) is the muscular black gay partner, stereotypically warm and affable. He likes lollipops (nearly always has one in his mouth) and also likes children, maybe too much: his long, slow proffering of a lollipop to a timid Arab boy is obviously a symbolic seduction.

The movie was forbidden in the US by Condoleezza Rice.

This is a great movie with a few oddities but overall it's an extremely rare case of a modern Russian film that I can rate this high. Despite the claims of being anti-american (read reviews below) it is not. If anything, it is anti-stupidity. And if you were a Russian, you'd see anti-Russian sentiments there as well.

What is striking about this film, is Grymov's ability to weave personal dramas and insecurities into a bigger picture of a 3-way culture clash happening in an unnamed country in the Middle East. And, oh boy, this gets interesting. At some point I would even say realistic to the point of freaking out.

Why so? Because it hits the bull's eye on almost all points that I had a chance to experience firsthand. American messianism and unwavering belief in spreading the good at any cost (even when no one asks for it) - check. Middle Eastern mentality and attitude towards the outsiders - check. Russian attitude towards its own people as disposable material - check. Personal insecurities and compensating through playing a role of a good guy in large-scale issues waaay above their pay-grade - check. Individuals responding very differently to stress and melting down under pressure - check.

This movie is both a human drama and a drama of humanity that is too selfish and too preoccupied with their own little agendas. I get it why Americans totally hate this movie (Russians freaked out about "Chernobyl" series for that very reason) but hey... it's a pretty honest look in the mirror. Pretty much all of Europe would agree. So if you don't like what you see, you know whom to blame.

Great movie. Period.

"Strangers" to whom, to what ? It's easy to shut the issue up by calling "The strangers" (Chuzhie) by Russian Director Yuri Grumov a piece of Russian Anti-American propaganda. But is it really ? The message the movie delivers sounds rather like "Sin estranges people one from another" than "Americans are daemons". The movie title means first of all "strangers to each other". It's a moralistic research journey into the world of relationships between humans united on the mission with the motto "America must act !". If you would like to know what is it like I would compare this work to the "The Island" with Di Caprio. Corrupt human relations ruin life even in the paradise (The Island), and even on the noble mission (The Strangers). But "The Strangers" go a bit further in exposing the decease: when sin becomes a norm (like relationship of gay doctors) and is no more treated as sin then truth leaves the place, noble doing looses sense, aggression turns against the weakest, charity becomes hypocritical, family is destroyed. The grotesque portrayal of US team members serves not propagandistic aims, but helps to reveal the message which is universal in any nation. They are not caricatures, but pure types. We know that pure types rarely exist in real life. Same is applied to the Russians (de-miner squad) who appear just in several short episodes, the only aim of which is to create the contrast, and to show what a real human relationship should be. It's quite universal. I agree that this movie will hardly be appreciated in the West, nobody likes to recognize himself in grotesque, but it will come very useful to a Russian spectator who has to face the influence of Western culture stereotypes every day. Yuri Grymov has done work worth of Fyodor Dostoevsky. A very pure, very responsible, work with a great sympathy to the truth. Drunk and speaking one-liners Russian commissars from "RAMBO" and the stuff, shall not be brought forth as the justification of "The Strangers". "The Strangers" is not in any way a revenge for the goofy or evil Russian characters in the cold war era blockbusters. It's a serious work that sources it's inspiration in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Orthodox Christianity. If you want a Russian spoof of RAMBO please watch "The sole cruise" (Odinochnoe plavanie). If you still feel offended, think rather of "Gulag Archipelago". It would be a just cultural exchange. Very probably Yuri Grymov made only one mistake calling Americans Americans and Russians Russians. But if he cloaked the story in the fantasy names (like Orks and Hobbyts) would it spare the movie from the Russian anti-American propaganda charges ? But how to speak on the problem then ? Our strangers are lost to the truth in their own understanding of what truth is. American Jesus has little to do with real Jesus. I've heard this several times from Americans. So, after all, that makes me believe "The Strangers" have some chance with the American audience.