A Prisioneira do Caucaso

We think of Soviet cinema as very serious, but it turns out that there were in fact comedies in there. A hilarious example is Leonid Gayday's "Kavkazskaya plennitsa, ili Novye priklyuchenia Shurika" ("Kidnapping, Caucasian Style" in English). I interpreted it as a look at the challenges of trying to install the Soviet Union's centralized economy when there were these different cultures throughout the USSR, but it's the kind of zany slapstick that you'd think came from Hollywood (think "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"). It appears that both the Eastern and Western Blocs had a penchant for over-the-top wackiness in the '60s.

I understand that this movie is a sequel to an earlier Gayday movie featuring Aleksandr Demyanenko as Shurik. If this one is any indication, then the original must be a laugh riot. You gotta love the antics of the Coward, Fool and Pro, and Nina is a real hottie. This must have been one fun movie to make, and I'm sure that you'll love it.

This is a comedy that will keep a smile on your lips throughout. The actors do as fine a job as any slapstick comedians I have seen and the humor translates across generations. This is a film that is many things in one: a family film (nothing offensive here), a piece of historical culture (especially with its snide jokes about lazy, corrupt bureaucrats, which surely skated close to the censors in the old USSR -- but just as certainly resonated with the viewing public then and now), and a delightfully dated comedy complete with mid-60s music and hair.

I recommend viewing the DVD in the original Russian language, using subtitles if you do not understand Russian. The subtitles are not obtrusive, and to employ dubbing is to lose the wonderful vocal intonations and characterizations of the original actors.

This is a very good film, at least an 8 out of 10. Get a copy of the DVD and enjoy!

Although CCS may not quite measure up to Gaidi's next offering, Diamond Arm, it is still a film that must be seen. Many reviewers have criticized these films as having too many "Russian inside jokes".As a non-Russian, I can't argue with this. But there is something much more universal here. Through the use of extraordinarily crisp dialog, pacing and an absolutely zany musical score, Gaidi has captured the quirky essence of humanity: the way we are fickle, selfish, lovable and blind to our own absurd behavior. These are some of the only movies that I would recommend watching with dubbed voices - it further adds to the wacky quality of the humor.

Finally, it is impossible to watch this movie and not adore Natalya Varley. She has a genuineness that grounds the whole film and makes you care about what's happening.

Perhaps you have seen "Divorce Italian Style", a classic example of delightful farce. With this Ruski gem, the laughs come even faster. It is set in the Caucasian mountains, and the spectacular scenery is a bonus. A trio of buffoons who often appeared together star in this film along with the "hero". A very beautiful young woman figures into the silly plot, and she becomes the kidnap victim. Complete nonsense ensues, and it is priceless. At times it looks like potential source material for Benny Hill. One of the buffoons stars as the "hero" in other excellent comedies and was a gifted circus clown (I forget his name, drat!). In this film the non-stop antics and gags, although clearly done on a very low budget, nonetheless work very well with a cast that is obviously having a jolly good time. Available with subtitles.

He only appeared in a few films, but the idea seems to have been to make the "Shurik" character played by Aleksandr Demyanenko into a sort of Soviet version of classic recurring slapstick characters of the type of, most famously, Chaplin's "Little Tram" -- he shows up somewhere and the character remains the same but is placed in a new comedic story-line.

It works well, and this comedy benefits from being much more unifying than the previous Shurik film, "Operatsiya Y." He shows up and we're told that Shurik has arrived in the Caucasus in order to study folklore. We don't need to know anything more, but it does lead to a funny running gag, where everyone he meets forces on him way more alcohol than he can handle because he said he would be studying traditional toasts.

This movie is very funny, seeming to find just the right combination of classic old-fashioned slapstick, outright goofiness, and a good farcical plot. The story, which is based around a traditional Caucasion bride- kidnapping turning into a real kidnapping, is just enough to keep funny misunderstandings going, but not get in the way of good gags pr set pieces. There's also a lot of Central Asian local-color to be seen -- as part of the concept is taking the retiring city-boy Shurik and putting him in an interesting location -- and that's just interesting from any perspective.

Though Shurik is nominally the protagonist, a lot of the comedy show is stolen by the band of three villains (including one who has the only postwar Hitler moustache I've seen on anyone but Michael Jordan or Robert Mugabe) who channel the Three Stoges in their slapstick attempts to get things done.

Natalya Varley is a lot of fun to watch as she apparently invests her role with a superhuman amount of verve, and the two songs are both highly catchy. So on the whole this one's a winner, and just plain funny throughout.