Kochegar

One of my most favourite movies is Brat by Balabanov. Thus, having read somewhere that Russian movie critics called Kochegar the best Russian movie of 2010, and its plot is quite similar to that of Brat, I was expecting something at least as good. I was wrong. Comparing these two movies, I should say that when watching Brat, I have a feeling of seeing truth. Watching Kochegar, I feel seeing artificial people in artificial situations. Apparently, Mr. Balabanov forgot that a good movie should teach, should send some message. This movie just shows the very dark and vicious sides of life without any message. Just blunt murder and blunt nudity. Something is wrong - either with Russia, or with Balabanov, or with me.

"A Stoker" is one of the last films of Aleksey Balabanov, the cult director of the new Russian cinema. The story of the revenge of a small man, a former major, who is brilliantly played by unprofessional Yakut actor Mikhail Skryabin.

Not the kind of film that can be understood from western Europe audiences; I am not even sure it was released in French movie theaters. It is not a good film actually, but an interesting one, if you accept the offbeat, weird tale, totally f...up. Even without any subtitles and Russian spoken, it is rather easy to more or less follow this film. The settings are in St Petersburg - Russia and involves a war veteran, some kind of a homeless - but not a homeless though, who is in charge to get rid of corpses, victims of two hired killers. He gets rid of those corpses in a big, huge boiler, he cremates the bodies...It is gloomy, weird, disturbing without being genuinely depressing though. It just deserves to be seen to be believed. I like it, a curious way to show the Russia of the 2010's in another way than propaganda war films.

The movie had interesting scenes, characters and good cinematography but ... everything was ruined by the painful music that distracted from the beginning to the end, or my end. It felt like torture. I couldn't watch more than 20 minutes. Terrible.

Yes, a good movie: good picture, good (very good) camera, good acting of the fireman that is in the cast of cargo 200 too; other actors are "street real" and they are great for what they have to do. The music is perfect, and the 90's Russia atmosphere is almost in every frame of this movie. If you love Russian atmosphere, gangster, shooting, action this is the film for you: this film shows something that nobody wants to remember but you have to watch other films of this great director and study a bit of history (maybe even go to little Odessa and have a talk with someone) if you want to appreciate it all. It is not the story that makes the point is everything around it, that is why i love Balabanov. Great work Mr. Balabanov Sorry for my bad English Greetings from Italy.