Bezrazlichie

to recreate the era that no one participating in the film remembers clearly, including very old, now late, crooner Edouard Khil who sang from every kettle in the 1970s, and here he does the same, pretending to be himself in an old TV seen from the street through a window (thank god, it's a very brief cameo).

So, the film has no plot, atrocious dialogue, crude digital animation, clichés money shots, the usual set of visual period fetishes, and no acting whatsoever, and one wonders why the project had to be picked up at all, after the 20 years hiatus. Love, says the director, but one suspects lower motives, like a wish not to put the past effort and material to waste. And, probably to win some awards while catching the soviet nostalgia wave.

On the good side, there is some archive footage of Moscow street scenes ranging from the 1950s to 1970s, some bits of inventive analogue animation, and the excellent (but not period) soundtrack. It looks like the whole shebang was done as a longish metaphor, to illustrate the last line, "It all began so well, and here's the end," said off screen in a disillusioned voice, while we see a rocket taking off behind two thugs' backs. Now, the film creators claim that it's the soul of the murdered protagonist but this is clearly bullshit. It looks more like an ironic comment on the "thawing off" period, which never really took off but later consolidated into the infamous stagnation, and we all know what it all came to.

However, by the irony counter, the "Indifference" lacks a lot. Even the clichés are stillborn there.