Ayka

I saw this film , in gala opening of Cairo film festival , held in Egypt Its a film about the suffering of a helpless young woman...how to survive in a country she knows nothing about ...illegaly working and living in it... On so many levels the story line is moving...but my comment was why all the excessive details..and long scnes repeating the same thing over and ober It was more of a documentary film.... My second comment was the overdose of blood ...it needed to tone down abit in this regard Some people who watched it felt that the director did not utilse the story well... Also the actress ( who won best actress in Cannes film festival 2018) had the same expresion almost all the film..not much of acting as much as the story its self that deserved a prize

With 'Ayka', director Sergei Dvortsevoy has proven to be a contemporary master of the classic impetus of Russian art: depicting the depths of human suffering, despair, and the lengths at which one might go to simply remain alive. Leading actress Samal Yeslyamova goes beyond mere acting and gloriously succeeds in telling her story through minimal dialogue and maximal emotional performance. The story does stumble a bit throughout the first act, but it is sufficiently augmented by a gripping third act and an emotionally draining ending.

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.

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.

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.