I've heard it said that a person has to be Russian to appreciate this film fully. I'm not sure -- I'm not Russian myself, but it didn't stop me from finding it a genial, lighthearted, and thoroughly entertaining film, as time spent in nature with a bunch of fun guys and a good supply of drink should be. As this is clearly the movie's highest goal, it seems to succeed with a kind of extra relish.
It's interesting that while part of the device is that we see how different and less glamorous the reality of "the national hunt" hunt his from a Finn's imagination of its eighteen-sixties-ish equivalent, this is as much as anything a way into a kind of sentimental ironic nationalism that glows behind the comedy. We may be humorously unlike the romantic picture of Russia, it seems to say, but we're unlike it in these irreducibly characteristic and lovable ways. Having a foreigner along the whole time highlights both this and the comedy.
So the title, I think, is less ironic than it might seem. But the main thing is the spirit of fun that pervades it, and the fact that it's episodic nature allows for plenty of enjoyable gags and sequences.
It's interesting that while part of the device is that we see how different and less glamorous the reality of "the national hunt" hunt his from a Finn's imagination of its eighteen-sixties-ish equivalent, this is as much as anything a way into a kind of sentimental ironic nationalism that glows behind the comedy. We may be humorously unlike the romantic picture of Russia, it seems to say, but we're unlike it in these irreducibly characteristic and lovable ways. Having a foreigner along the whole time highlights both this and the comedy.
So the title, I think, is less ironic than it might seem. But the main thing is the spirit of fun that pervades it, and the fact that it's episodic nature allows for plenty of enjoyable gags and sequences.