"Kin-dza-dza!", pretty short title for this rather long movie at easily over two hours, is a Soviet film from 1986, so this one will have its 35th anniversary next year or maybe it happened already depending on when you read my review. Apparently, the most frequently spoken language in here is Georgian according to imdb and not Russian, but as somebody with almost zero connections to either language I cannot confirm if this is true. Of course, there is also this fantasy language, but I will get to that later on. By the way, to me the title sounds like "Kinshasa", but this has obviously nothing to do with the actual meaning that I sadly did not manage to figure out. Maybe on rewatch. The director and also one of the two writers is Georgiy Daneliya, who sadly died last year, but at least reached a really high age. I don't think I have seen anything else from him, but this one we got here is probably his most known effort anyway and it was such a success that it got turned into an animated movie even not too long ago, in 2013. Who can say something like this about his biggest success? Not even Spielberg, Scorsese, Tarantino etc. I guess the fantasy element helped him a lot with this endeavor and he is also credited as director for said animated movie, which was his last career effort and seemingly got him out of retirement even as he had not worked on a movie since 2000 until that point. But now back to this one we got here: The awards attention is there, but not huge, but the imdb rating here tells us that this is really appreciated by people still such a long time after its release and it seems to age well. I was one when it came out originally and for Daneliya it was already one of his later, but not very late career efforts. Like I said, I have not seen anything else from the man, but I felt it was quite a fresh breath actually compared to the extremely serious stuff other filmmakers came up back then. People firstg thinkk of Tarkovsky of course and wellhe is the best example, especially because one of his most known, "Solaris", is also really closely connected to space, even if more in terms of spaceships than planets. But we have a pretty interesting vehicle here too. So yeah, this film is a bit of anti-Solaris with how it is really 100% comedy, nothing else, even in more serious moments when characters are in danger of being executed. Not even then, it is a drama. A lot of this movie is set on a sand planet, one that even Dune can be very jealous of. In the second half, there are long segments inside too like in the aforementioned capsule or also tunnel-like areas. We even follow the two protagonists on their journey to a very green planet on which characters are turned into cactuses if they do not behave. So yeah, even if some of the characters and aliens (we gotta call them that!) seem like super progressive in terms of science and progress, they occasionally still look like cave men. I should actually put that the other way around. Even if they look like cave men, they have access to technologies that we here on Earth can only dream of. Especially back when this movie was made. Time travel happens easily, there are items that help with memory loss and of course clicking a simple button once will catapult you deep into space. And all this is not at some trial stage, it is easily available to those who want it or need it it seems. And also offered to others like with time travel on this green planet. But yeah, in other areas they are pretty barbaric for a change like I said. Watch yourself and you will know what I mean.
Now a few words on the key characters: Sadly I cannot say too much about the actors because I am really not familiar with films from this time from this region of the world, but this is certainly my loss because it is not only in terms of writing and the worlds they created a super creative movie, but the acting is also pretty good. The protagonist looks like a mix of Charlton Heston, James Bond and Michael Madsen and, unlike his director, is still alive today, also at a pretty high age. His character also has a good heart as he cares for his new Georgian buddy, won't leave him behind when he has the chance and all this although they never met before and basically it was the young gun's "fault" they they ended up there. The " because you cannot really blame him, he just wanted to help a homeless and also because it was maybe also not his fault, but thanks to him that they managed to go on this spectacular adventure. We see with the wife at home and his regular job, the protagonist seems to have a pretty boring life otherwise, so a real life-changing moment, especially when he all remembers it in the end. The Georgian also calls him uncle, which shows they trust each other immediately, although afr from the same age group. There are two other characters, aliens, that our heroes meet quickly and stay with them basically for the rest of the film. Their first meeting was already pretty spectacular with the music performance there inside the cage. And the two aliens were gone immediately it seems, which would have resulted in a completely different story, but then they return and won't leave anymore. From these two aliens, one was very memorable, the smaller one (I'm sure you know which one I mean when you watch), the one who is more bossy. And those two are also a vehicle in showing us how kind the two humans are as basically almost the complete second half of the film (and, like I said, it's a long film) is about saving these two new friends from different hopeless scenarios, in which they even put their own lives at risk in this galaxy of advcanced technologies that could kill them in a second. As for the cage music I just mentioned, this is also one of the highlights of the movie. The two protagonists end up in cages too and we hear the make music as well. Especially this somewhat old Soviet Mama song was pretty catchy. Gotta put that on my MP3 player, even if I had not understood a single word without subtitles. Now, I almost jumped past the Georgian here, but he deserves a few words too. He seems to be pretty smart, even if he does not play the violin and and only carried it to somebody else apparently. But he is fluent in English and also speaks a bit of French and German, not too bad for a Soviet, especially during times like that. And I could imagine that, also because of that, Russian authorities were maybe not too happy with him being depicated as a pretty likable character with his western influence. In general, this seems like a movie that ia very progressive and I would be surprised if fundamental Russian politicians had something positive to say about it back then when it came out, especially as it was not too far anyway from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The actor who played this Georgian was still really young back then and sadly (or maybe not) did not manage a huge and long acting career in contarst to his slightly more significant co-lead. So this film that felt a bit like a western movie here and there too with all the sand or with all the progressive references (both words "western" apply) is the one that the kid who played the fiddler is still most known for today. And he is not even that old today. Let's not forget that here we do not have a film from the 1960s.
Now, the most important thing maybe: the fictitious language. So hilarious, already what they have to wear to understand it. The "Ku!" was the funniest, but not just that, but also the names for applications, people like the officers etc. So insanely creative and entertaining! True comedy highlights. Maybe the funniest moment to me was when one of the aliens explains some habits and customes about the significance of yellow and raspberry-colored pants and what privileges comes with those. Totally hilarious. In a good way. Utter creativity! So random, yet so funny. I laughed a lot here. On a sad note, it sucked that we did not find out about all the other stars and what happens there, but at least e see them in the end at the big night sky. Whhat is priceless there if not matches? I mean you have to make that matches idea work after all and boy they did. The ending brought nice closure too. Would have sucked if all their memories had been erased, but a specific vehicle coming by brings it all back, so luckily the technology that erased their memory was not 100% perfect there and they have each other and their memories again. Pretty nice closure and kinda sweet. Oh yes, "ecilops" means police spelled backwards, shame I did not realize that myself probably because the rest was all fictitious. So this film is a great simple movie on friendship too if we look away from all the supernatural elements too. One that has also an amazing soundtrack that fit very well. Close call if I think it is good or great, but I shall still go with the former and give it "only" three stars out of five because it gets slightly worse when more characters enter the picture and cannot keep the level from the first amazing 30 minutes in its entirety. But maybe on rewatch, I will correct it to four stars. No hesitation though for me in giving it a positive recommendation. Go see it if you get the chance to, preferrably on the big screen like I did the other night. It is turning into a bit of a cult classic, so theaters are picking up on it again if you don't live in the smallest town. Ku? Kü! Ku! Ku.
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