4

Was this Andy Warhol's "Pets or Meat" ? or Henry Jaglom's "Motel Hell"? Possibly Mike Leigh's "Night of the Living Dead"? Anyway, this film has my nomination for best ever use of clones with crones, and also for best use of crones overall. Did you know that if you play this film it matches up very well with Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"? No? Well maybe it doesn't but it should! Try it!

I found this film consistently involving even though it became increasingly unpleasant and difficult to categorize or interpret. It appeared to have two distinct halves, each with different pacing and tone. The lively and stimulating first half took place in the city (Moscow?) and showed the stories of several characters unfolding. The 2nd half focused on one character and a separate set of people she knew in the country (until the very ending bits). This 2nd half was more claustrophobic, squalid, and disturbing.

After the Seattle 2005 screening during the Q/A session with the director, one Russian woman ranted at him for an act of "treason" in this disturbing portrayal of Russian life, and said it and he were "dirty!", asking him where he lived *now*, he must have been well paid for this, etc. He responded that unlike her he still lived in Russia, that in fact life was *harder* than he portrayed and that Russians drank *more* than he portrayed, etc. After she walked out, he explained that her reaction was typical of the culturally *soviet* people in Russia, who were brought up to always present the best face of Russia at all times.

For me, it is one of the best Russian movies of the year 2005. It takes to what is called "collective unconscious" - but I guess only if y're Russian about 30 y.o. living in large city:) I was really amazed by Ilya Chrzhanovsky's astonishing work because it's his first full-length movie. Vladimir Sorokin, who wrote the script, is very scandalous author who loves to shock audience. Besides, he is obviously postmodernist, so his stories are always full of different layers of meaning, contain a lot of symbols. Often you can't understand for sure whether he is kidding or being serious. The last but not the least, the movie is brilliant at camera work and has an amazing soundtrack.

thank god ilya K made this film, even though it doesn't add up to anywhere near as much as it could have.

This is in many ways a very talented first-time directors art-house showcase film, pinching ideas willy nilly (not least from a certain Russian photographer) and rubbing the audience's face relentlessly, and to some degree a little unnecessarily, in his inventiveness. If it was calculated to make him the darling of festivals, which I'm sure was hardly the main point, it worked.

Does it hide its shock tactics structural weaknesses (the second half is a real, repetitive mess) behind notions of the auteur, of interpretive demands that must be made on an audience, on "social comment", and the usual avant=gardist stuff? Yeah, it does. That doesn't mean it's worthless. You just wish that Ilya K and Sorokin, apparently a great novelist, had thought a little more about cinematic narrative forms and what you can do with them.

That said, it's an unforgettable, beautiful mess of an artwork.

4 stray dogs on the street open the film. 4 persons (3 customers and a bartender) accidentally meet at a bar late night. The three drinkers make up their alternate fictional professions. The woman among them is one of 4 sisters. This woman Marina, (played by actress Marina Vovchenko) meets up with two of her other sisters (played by real life sisters, if we go by their surnames and physical similarity). The fourth sister just died. Dogs are everywhere, following all the characters--at the meat factory, at the village to eat up the dolls (made up of chewed up bread!), following the thief who robs the watch on the hand of one of the initial three drinkers at the bar. There is a Muslim who breeds bizarre round piglets (genetically modified?) and kicks a dog (2 animals devout Muslims hate to deal with) and is promptly reprimanded for his action by a non-Muslim. 4 planes take off with prisoners who are forcibly trained to be soldiers. The village reminds one of the derelict world of Tarkovsky's "Stalker" The odd male in the all-female village commits suicide.

There is some fascinating elements to the film (script by Vladimir Sorokin. Does the film belong to the director Ilya Khrzhanovslky (his debut feature film) or to Sorokin or to both? The film is audacious and critical of modern Russia.reminding one at times of Joseph Heller's "Catch 22." Somewhere, the mad script comes together. Reminds one of another debut film --this time from China--Bo Hu's "An Elephant Sitting Still" (2018), This film could have had an alternate fitting title "4 dogs not sitting still."

I liked "4" very much. Its nothing to Hollywood-addicts but it really uses the media in great way. If you accept that the story is in some way a spherical aberration there's are lots of scenes who are really spicy. It shows in a humoristic and absurd way some views of maybe Russians prejudice but also intensified. The long walk in the mud is relay long but a nice and artistic way to show it. The party and drinking with the old Russians woman are gorgeous. The long dialog in the beginning is interesting and it works... The theme 4 (things) is an entertaining thread and many very very fine just nice scenes with a great photo. It's a Russian "shortcut"