Igla is best known for starring "Kino" rock star Viktor Tsoy in the leading role and featuring his music in the soundtrack. But it's far from an insubstantial music tie-in film; I was seriously impressed. As other reviewers have pointed out, the plot is simple. That's true, but it's best that way considering how the film is presented, and it seemed to me intentional.
This film is powered mainly not by what exactly what is told but by how it is told. While the sequence of events is simple, it is revealed obliquely, with snatches of information and actions or set pieces that avoid obvious exposition. The real exceptional element is the grim surrealism in how the events are shown us -- Dima wearing a mask as Moro first reunites with her is much more eloquent than just saying she seems changed. These elements with artistically out-there steps such as the inclusion of brief drawn-on animations and the atmospheric inclusions of outside film and sound clips create an overall feel that's impossible to quite put into words. And the postmodern elements are all included very intelligently -- such as when the scene begins to imitate a Kung-Fu or action film only long enough to subvert the trope and show Moro get knocked down.
All this is quite impressively film against a very bleak-looking late- Soviet Kazakh backdrop that definitely adds to the atmosphere. Tsoy does a very good job acting-wise -- like some other talented performers without specific acting training he communicates a lot of simple realism and directness that works very well.
While the film assumes an anti-drug position from the outset, there as powerful sense of nihilism in its total position, considering the demonstrated outcome of taking personal action the way out hero does. A very impressive and powerful film.
This film is powered mainly not by what exactly what is told but by how it is told. While the sequence of events is simple, it is revealed obliquely, with snatches of information and actions or set pieces that avoid obvious exposition. The real exceptional element is the grim surrealism in how the events are shown us -- Dima wearing a mask as Moro first reunites with her is much more eloquent than just saying she seems changed. These elements with artistically out-there steps such as the inclusion of brief drawn-on animations and the atmospheric inclusions of outside film and sound clips create an overall feel that's impossible to quite put into words. And the postmodern elements are all included very intelligently -- such as when the scene begins to imitate a Kung-Fu or action film only long enough to subvert the trope and show Moro get knocked down.
All this is quite impressively film against a very bleak-looking late- Soviet Kazakh backdrop that definitely adds to the atmosphere. Tsoy does a very good job acting-wise -- like some other talented performers without specific acting training he communicates a lot of simple realism and directness that works very well.
While the film assumes an anti-drug position from the outset, there as powerful sense of nihilism in its total position, considering the demonstrated outcome of taking personal action the way out hero does. A very impressive and powerful film.