The three things the creators of this horror wanted to do were:
(1) Photograph lots of beautiful scenery, treating the big screen as a monstrous canvas for near-still photography merging into visual art;
(2) Set it all to avant-garde classical music performed with electronic instruments;
(3) Show the mindless brutality and degeneration that they believe to be the Russian psyche.
(1) and (2) are self-evident at first glance. They're also quite secondary.
And (3)? Well, how else to characterize a movie the plot of which is as follows: semi-degenerate-looking man goes crazy, then tries to seduce a cheaply country-erotic woman; fully degenerate husband of country-erotic woman cuts off finger of girl bitten by dog; neighbors take girl away; woman runs off with man, has wild sex in fresh air; husband burns empty house down to the ground, takes shotgun, shoots cow, shoots man and woman.
Oh yes, and in between somewhere for no reason other than (3) otherwise apparent is a scene of a few degenerates partying away that ends with a woman stabbing someone in the chest with a fork.
And let's not forget the degenerate-looking mental subnormal that drools as he rides his motorcycle, in scene after scene.
Hell, perhaps there's more to the movie than (3).
What it is, I don't know.
But whatever it is, it is stinkily obscene.
(1) Photograph lots of beautiful scenery, treating the big screen as a monstrous canvas for near-still photography merging into visual art;
(2) Set it all to avant-garde classical music performed with electronic instruments;
(3) Show the mindless brutality and degeneration that they believe to be the Russian psyche.
(1) and (2) are self-evident at first glance. They're also quite secondary.
And (3)? Well, how else to characterize a movie the plot of which is as follows: semi-degenerate-looking man goes crazy, then tries to seduce a cheaply country-erotic woman; fully degenerate husband of country-erotic woman cuts off finger of girl bitten by dog; neighbors take girl away; woman runs off with man, has wild sex in fresh air; husband burns empty house down to the ground, takes shotgun, shoots cow, shoots man and woman.
Oh yes, and in between somewhere for no reason other than (3) otherwise apparent is a scene of a few degenerates partying away that ends with a woman stabbing someone in the chest with a fork.
And let's not forget the degenerate-looking mental subnormal that drools as he rides his motorcycle, in scene after scene.
Hell, perhaps there's more to the movie than (3).
What it is, I don't know.
But whatever it is, it is stinkily obscene.