Bumer is frequently hailed as perhaps one of the best Russian movies in decades. This might be a capsule evaluation of dubious tendencies in the entire Russian cinema. Once this is the best ever, then which could have been the worst?
Four young culprits of distinctively felonious appearance expropriate a luxury BMW car (of the title that stands for the slangy reference to this Bavarian vehicle, Russian version of Bimmer) and flee to nowhere with no particular aim in view.
Sometimes it looks like Russia splits into two different never overlapping worlds. A regular person, not necessarily representing upper strata of society, from one ("normal") world may, luckily, never stumble across the harsh realities constantly experienced by the persons from the other ("warped") world.
And somehow cinema (most of the contemporary Russian movies in particular) may reflect such explicit division.
It might be either a glossy showcase of heroic typecast of characters or, otherwise a depiction of stereotypic brutal crooks (or minor variations) stewing in their own juice. The golden mean is regretfully rarely seen in our cinema nowadays.
Some may say Bumer is unbelievably sincere and truthful, to the bones, in portrayal of horrors of our everyday life (or the wrong side of life).
Violent robberies and rampant extortion elsewhere on the roads, corrupt law enforcement system, brutal shootouts and bloodshed between the gangs, lost generation - is this all real and does this exist? Undeniably - yes.
Oh, did I forget terrible motorways impassable to that overpraised miracle of German engineering?
But if the sole target of the producers of the film is the desire to persuade us that such horrible world with not a single positive hero in the vicinity really exists and, moreover, THIS IS OUR REALITY - well this isn't something that needs any more proofs. We've seen this all before and we are all well aware that life is full of crap.
The direction is unexceptional and uneven at times. So is the yarn - an overlong and a kind of leisurely road trip with incidental clashes of our intrepid quartet against their colleagues in the other side of the law, or with angry truck drivers, or with militia. It has an overdose of flashbacks and ridiculous sprinkles of casual romantic liaisons.
The dialog is mostly unconvincing and preposterous blend of rather tame foul language and pseudo-criminal folklore.
Acting of the leads is decent at best, but I wonder who might be caring about the motives of the four half-witted laddies desperately floundering atop of the big bunch of muck they have devised for their own amusement: - just to keep themselves absorbed in shoveling their way through this mess to find the fate they actually deserve.
And if anyone may, however, feel attracted to the trivial speculations on the issues of loyalty and betrayal (among that specific layer of the society) allegedly offered by the film - my humble opinion might easily be disregarded.
Four young culprits of distinctively felonious appearance expropriate a luxury BMW car (of the title that stands for the slangy reference to this Bavarian vehicle, Russian version of Bimmer) and flee to nowhere with no particular aim in view.
Sometimes it looks like Russia splits into two different never overlapping worlds. A regular person, not necessarily representing upper strata of society, from one ("normal") world may, luckily, never stumble across the harsh realities constantly experienced by the persons from the other ("warped") world.
And somehow cinema (most of the contemporary Russian movies in particular) may reflect such explicit division.
It might be either a glossy showcase of heroic typecast of characters or, otherwise a depiction of stereotypic brutal crooks (or minor variations) stewing in their own juice. The golden mean is regretfully rarely seen in our cinema nowadays.
Some may say Bumer is unbelievably sincere and truthful, to the bones, in portrayal of horrors of our everyday life (or the wrong side of life).
Violent robberies and rampant extortion elsewhere on the roads, corrupt law enforcement system, brutal shootouts and bloodshed between the gangs, lost generation - is this all real and does this exist? Undeniably - yes.
Oh, did I forget terrible motorways impassable to that overpraised miracle of German engineering?
But if the sole target of the producers of the film is the desire to persuade us that such horrible world with not a single positive hero in the vicinity really exists and, moreover, THIS IS OUR REALITY - well this isn't something that needs any more proofs. We've seen this all before and we are all well aware that life is full of crap.
The direction is unexceptional and uneven at times. So is the yarn - an overlong and a kind of leisurely road trip with incidental clashes of our intrepid quartet against their colleagues in the other side of the law, or with angry truck drivers, or with militia. It has an overdose of flashbacks and ridiculous sprinkles of casual romantic liaisons.
The dialog is mostly unconvincing and preposterous blend of rather tame foul language and pseudo-criminal folklore.
Acting of the leads is decent at best, but I wonder who might be caring about the motives of the four half-witted laddies desperately floundering atop of the big bunch of muck they have devised for their own amusement: - just to keep themselves absorbed in shoveling their way through this mess to find the fate they actually deserve.
And if anyone may, however, feel attracted to the trivial speculations on the issues of loyalty and betrayal (among that specific layer of the society) allegedly offered by the film - my humble opinion might easily be disregarded.