DMB

This movie is shot in ordinary-unusual style. Yes such it is possible, if the screenwriter is Ivan Okhlobystin, and the director Roman Kachanov Jr. Situations are still absurd, ridiculous and mad. But certainly, they are filled with humour, often black and cynical. It is so refined and so beautiful, without falling to a seamy side, to tell about army and all her pleasures and adversities, perhaps, more at anybody it didn't turn out.

"To madness of the brave we sing the song", as Maxim Gorky told in its poem, and there is a wish to sing simply of all genius of the people working on this picture. Here all is ideal: from the scenario and to camera-work. Okhlobystin issued the scenario in the its unical style again, balancing on a thin side between nonsense and absurdity. Magnificent humour which and "flows" from the main characters. It not simply jokes, but the army life, shown in very hypertrophied form.

The empty army division, UFOs — all this almost dements, doesn't allow to be concentrated on something. One more movie which can't simply be understood mind. Here and there is a wish to use the phrase of the Madman Frankie "Close eyes and look". That is it should be felt soul and to understand reason, to attach the imagination and it will completely be exempted from serious thoughts. After all it is a certain absurd surrealism. No, not such absurdity as at Monty Python, and not that surrealism of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Here all this in absolutely other context. In truly Russian, domestic. In total, it seems, it seems unreal, but in too so native all the time.

One of the most effective military forces in human history was the Soviet Army 1943-45 . After being instrumental in the defeat of Nazism the Soviets moved hundreds of thousands of troops to its Eastern border with China and wiped out a Japanese force numbering a million men in the space of days . By the 1960s due to a manpower shortage the Soviets started conscripting those with criminal records in to the military . As the years passed standards got lower and Dedovshchina " The rule of the grandfathers " became part of the Soviet military culture . This in practice meant that a newly conscripted in the first 6 month phase of his military service was basically a slave to those who had done their initial six months . After that six months the recruit would still be a slave to those who had done twelve to eighteen months but those newly recruited soldiers conscripted in to the army now became that soldiers slaves

One of my all time favourite documentaries is a Russian one called SOLDAT that goes in to detail about Dedovshchina . It's a gut wrenching , shocking expose of what life was like in the post communist Russian army where this brutal hierarchy has got worse for a new generation of Russian conscript . There's also a very good by Arkady Babchenko called One Soldier's War where he goes in to detail about Dedovsschina and his experiences fighting again the Chechens . Again it's something that makes nice bed time reading but makes you thankful you weren't born a Russian

And it was for the reason of finding out what life must be like in the Russian army that I tracked down Roman Kachanov's film DEMOBBED hoping to find out something about modern day Russian culture . It's something of a bitter disappointment as a trio of young Russians find themselves in a series of episodic escapades most of which involve a character being drunk . There's no plot as such and by the second half of the film I found myself with little interest in what was happening on screen . I don't know if there's a cultural barrier but a series of absurdest blackly comical scenes left me none the wiser about contemporary Russian life in the military

I don't know how to wathch this movie without russian language skills and some historical and cultural backround. It's just very minimalistic, raw and cynical snapshot of "rakish 90s" way of life in Russia. Almost all dialogues it's just a perfect collection of witty quotations. If you want to try to see this, please, prepare for low budget well directed work with estranged acting. It's a good source if you want to know somethng of post "perestroyka" times. For more detailed experience "Brother"(1997), "Osobennosti natsionalnoy okhoty"(1995), "Shirli-myrli"(1995) and "V dvizhenii" (2002) are recommended.

Worth to see , especially if you know russian language. The movie shows the Russian army and some parts of the russian spirit in the most funny and unbelieveble way. The best part is how true the movie is. And by the way- not only for the Russian army. As I've said, a movie of a kind " it's funny, but it's so true it's scarry".