Ayka

We see a film that makes love to questions our souls seldom ask. The pain of attachment whispers to those of us finding love sacred, until we are all alone screaming in torment's silence.

A woman in Moscow attempting the forbidden, crossing the bridge of survival in the ice and snow of human apathy. As we are there with her, helplessness unflowering shock, the garden of our selfishness wants us to leave this immersion, are we drowning or escaping...Although we are the prisoner of our own denial, we would beg to lose the shackles of the woman in this film. Samal graces the river of my senses with a waterfall of paralysis. A rainbow of emotion awaits you. Become the fire of the sunrise. Or the darkness before the dawn. Fire does not burn. It illuminates. A film that blinds, that you may truly see and feel. Close to home...

Ayka, the striking movie of Sergei Dvortsevoy, presents not only such a powerfull sense of reality, but also an excellent cinematographical narration!

Every lovers of realist cinema should see this movie. Ayka promises for a rarely seen movie pleasure in addition to hard criticism on true horrible examples of actual poverty experiences.

Quite a realistic film showing the life of migrant workers from the former Central Asian Soviet republics in modern "humane" Russia. The aesthetic pleasure the film does not deliver, but view it still makes sense.

Millions of migrants have been living in Moscow since mid 2000s. They take all kinds of work and receive wages that seem humiliating even to native Russians who are themselves mostly paid worse than anywhere in Europe. This movie is a well executed attempt to relive one of their mostly invisible lives, consciously ignored by both government and general public. This might be the only feature movie that puts some harsh, Dardenne-style light onto this part of life in Russia. It presents no answers or ideas, not even in a metaphorical way (almost). Instead it follows an indebted girl fighting with herself and recognizable features of modern Moscow: alienation, hypocrisy, absence of rule of law, acute social stratification. No person in the movie looks too horrible or too humane. The environment of the city however seems to be the thing that keeps everybody in a sort of struggling motion, depreciating hopes and turning them into little nightmares that further dissolve or turn into silent tragedies. No overdramatisation or extra lipstick is present however. Definitely something to watch.

"Ayka" is the main festival success of the year of Russian cinema. The director of the film, Sergei Dvortsevoy, worked for 7 long years about 7 short days in inhospitable Moscow of a woman migrant worker. A barely standing pregnant woman is struggling for life with all her strength, taking on any hard work. Absolutely fair award for the best female role of the Cannes Film Festival went to the wonderful Kazakh actress Samal Eslyamova. Sad fact: the Ministry of Culture of Russia annually distributes a huge amount of money for mediocre films, but can not forgive the debt of the director of this film, which glorified Russia.