Mussulman

Nice shots of countryside, ponds, meadows, log cabins. But aside from that, it was too slow and the dialogs too boring. Not an urbanite bunch, small rural village society but presented awkwardly and grotesque (take for example the scene of people jumping into the river to catch dollar bills floating).

I did not particularly like this movie. During the Soviet times many Russian movies portrayed religious people as stupid and narrow-minded. In the 90's the trend reversed and this movie is an example of it. Too much emphasis on religion, and you feel that the makers of the movie are trying to push religion on you (whatever religion it might be).

The movie also attempts to be fancy-shmancy with symbolism, but the attempts seem quite forced.

The portrayal of a Russian village of the mid-90's is fairly accurate, but that's about the only redeeming feature of this flick.

> and as far as this goes, 60% of Russian population lives in villages > like the one shown

What an ignorant comment! FYI, 75% of Russians live in urban environments, and of the remaining 25% plenty live in quite prosperous villages (such as one where I spent most of the summers of my childhood in the early and mid-90's which is exactly when the movie is supposed to be taking place).

A Russian soldier returns to his dreary rural village after several years in captivity in Afghanistan. During this time, he has converted to Islam, but he finds his home village full of people who long ago lost their original Russian Orthodox faith, except for a few relics such as kissing the icons, and have also lost whatever belief in Marxism they may once have had. At the same time, they are left out of the economic changes that are occurring in the cities. They are stuck in an impoverished, depressing environment, and with no established guidelines, they adopt the principle of "Get it while you can." The local Orthodox priest is young and cheerful, but ultimately ineffectual against the deep-seated disillusionment and cynicism of the villagers, who drink, steal, sleep around, and look out for number one.

Into this environment comes a young man who actually believes in something. The usual problems of reverse culture shock (coming back home after a long time in a foreign environment) are exacerbated by his dismay at the behavior of his family and friends. They, in turn, find him insufferable. He won't drink, kiss the icons, or help steal from the local factory.

While the film drags in spots, it's a fine portrayal of a dysfunctional society in which no one believes in anything anymore. (Most non-religious people in more affluent societies have some set of philosophical principles that they follow, but that kind of disillusionment in an impoverished, uneducated society can lead to nihilism.) The villagers clearly need "something to believe in," even if it's just a way to improve the economic and social standing of their village.

In the meantime, what will they do when faced with someone who has a strong inner core of beliefs?

There is a fine line between a film that criticises society and a film that outright assaults society. This one falls into the latter category. It has absolutely nothing good to say about the Russian people, and nothing bad to say about the people who slit the throats of young Russian men. The idea that the protagonist wasn't killed when captured, and was even welcomed into Afghan society, seems fantastic. And what do the filmmakers do with this fantastic scenario? They use it as a plot device to show us just how sick, corrupt, and depraved every Russian in existence is. No one is spared here: his family, friends, locals, politicians, priests, his army buddies... But here's the ironic twist: While the film wants to portray as corrupt all these people who reject or even wish to murder the protagonist turned muslim, it makes the viewer wonder: Isn't at least that a redeeming feature of Russian society? Had an Afghan turned Christian, his own people would have killed him. These are the people whose morality the film glorifies from beginning to end. But perhaps it also means that Russian society still has the strength to condemn a traitor, despite all its shortcomings?

The movie has a good idea but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and everything looks cheap with few scenarios that are repeated all the time. However, the acting is decent at its best and even with such a shallow script sometimes it's the only thing that saves a scene.

The movie is boring and I almost slept at the end, if you really want to see it, watch it for the nice visuals and cinematography and do not expect to be entertained all the time.