Reviews

Coming to this film by way of having read that Neil Hannon put some music to it, and being familiar with the Father Ted series, I had expected to see a funny light movie. I was therefore not entirely sure what to make of it at first, it being kind of slow and sombre. If it hadn't been for me wanting to hear the music I might not have finished it, as it was somewhat lacking in clear plot lines and momentum. However, I'm glad I did, because all in all it is a very enjoyable movie, with a humble sense of humour, attention to people, landscape, light and weather (think Bela Tarr, but less depressing). It may have been that seeing this movie in 3 or 4 parts and not in one continuous sitting, has given it more time to sink in and be absorbed (see 15 minutes, pause for making coffee, see some more, sleep over it, and finish on a quiet Sunday, then think about it some more). It will then possibly leave you with a melancholy longing for desolate quarries in the company of one or two acquaintances after having done nothing important but experiencing a kind of satisfactory feeling. Looking forward to a DVD with slow commentary and a making of.

When you find yourself being able to get adjusted to the pace and atmosphere of the film, after the few first inconvenient couple of minutes where comparison with Sin City is still in your mind, you will realize that it actually has a very likable and kind of hypnotic tone of its own. At the end I was longing for more comics to having been handled in this way. (e.g. I still haven't seen a Batman movie that has done justice to the feeling I remember from when I first read the comic books, and I think a treatment like this would approach it quite good.) What is done here very nicely (among others) is maintaining an unreal drawing and acting style, thus creating more grotesque and concentrated impressions of surrounding and character than any 'real' rendering would be able to. The movie in my opinion succeeds in grafting a concentrated mood and plot where each character seems to have its own measured role, time and place. Very nicely done.

I remember it as very exciting and strange, featuring a handsome hero with a secret mission in an old Russia threatened by Kozaks and frozen rivers, wearing woolly hats and serious faces. Recurring curious characters who were on the hero's side. All the while everybody is traveling to somewhere in Russia to do something of world-importance. As you may notice the details have eluded me. What's left are some images like described above, and a longing to see it again, slightly apprehensively because a re-acquaintance might prove disappointing.

The DVD of (part of) the series is currently only to be found in French with no subtitling on Ebay or http://www.2xmoinscher.com/DVD/detail.asp?id=16410.