meshko

Nico is a college graduate. He gets assigned to be an engineer at a wine factory. He tries to do his job well and falls in love with beautiful Marina. The movie is very slow paced (like a movie about Georgia should be) but it never gets boring. Sometimes it is very funny and almost never too sad. Leaves you with a very nice feeling.

This is the first Russian post-perestroika movie which managed to survive Hollywood influence and produce a film which is made in Russian tradition but can be shown to American audience. The reason for that, of course, is the novel on which the plot is based. For non-russian readers, this is "Brave heart" set in 18th century Russia during the bloody uprising started by self-proclaimed Russian Tsar Pugachev (real story, tm). For people who have read Pushkin's story -- it's a really good screen adaptation of the novel. They didn't add or remove (as far as I remember) anything, so it will not make you sick, I promise.

It's a good movie. As almost all the modern Russian movies it has a significant Hollywood feel to it, but all in all it's in the good old tradition. The acting is good (almost always), the plot is simple and effective. Quite a few scenes are done really good. In a sense it combines the depth of European (Russian) movies with power and speed of Hollywood. For example compare the scene of break up of Lesha and Rita with the drugs deal in the airport which is made in the best traditions of Tarantino. All in all good movie worth watching.