It's very easy, especially for a non-russian person, to mistake "Brat" for just another action movie. It's true - the protagonist Danila is a criminal, he's surrounded by bandits and he's not shy too use his gun. But it's much more complicated.
Infact, "Brother" resembles much more a time capsule of the "Wild West" years of the Russian 90s, a reflection of the Russian soul than a crime thriller. To understand this, one must know the context of the world this movie is playing in, though.
In the 1990s, it looked like Russia was finished. The USSR had just dissolved. After being a socialist superpower for more than 70 years, Russia turned into a turbo-capitalist country where only the law of the strongest, the law of the jungle, applied. On the verge of a civil war, with local conflicts like in Chechnya flaring up, oligarchs usurped what the vanished Soviet Union had left behind. Gangsters took advantage of the power vacuum that had arisen with the withdrawal of the state and fought each other for the biggest piece of the pie. Gang shootings occurred almost every day in every major city. Returning war veterans from Grozny, many drafted at the age of 18, had never learned anything in their lives but to kill and provided a constant supply for the mercenary armies of the gang bosses.
One such veteran is our main character, Danila. Returning to his home, he keeps silent about what he has seen and done in the war, saying he never got to fight. Thus, his mother has no idea what he went through. She raves about his older brother Viktor, who, unlike him, would make himself useful making big money and tells Danila to visit him.
Although his mother apparently refuses him the love that he would have particularly needed after his assignment in Chechnya, he accepts her advice. His behavior is reminiscent of a Russian proverb: If the whole family is together, the soul is also in place. Danila takes a train to the big city Saint Petersburg, which only recently was called Leningrad, and thus symbolizes the end of an old and the beginning of an new era. The crumbling facades of the old houses there reflect the state of the whole country. Finally he meets his older brother. It becomes clear that the child his mother was so proud of makes his living not the way she had imagined it: Viktor is a contract killer. Unlike Danila, he adapted himself to the new world they are living in - a world where money determines the value of a life. For Viktor, power lays in money, and thus it's only logical for him to immediately take advantage of his little brother and use him to do all kinds of dirty work. Danila, on the other hand, has a completely different character. For him, power lays in truth. He's a very simple and uneducated young man, can't tell America apart from France, but not dumb. He knows what his brother is up to. Although it becomes clear that Danila acquired significantly superior combat skills in Chechnya, he still does what his older brother wants - after all, Viktor is his own flesh and blood.
Danila feels lost in the big city of Saint Petersburg. In one scene you see him buying CDs of his favorite rock band Nautilus, happy as a child, in another he's committing brute force. He is torn between the things he loves and his cruel surroundings. His peers make fun of his "old-fashioned" taste in music (which you can hear throughout the film) and naivety, while the elderly reject his violent way of life. He tries to protect the woman he fell in love with, but ends up only hurting her. What happens to him can be paraphrased in a dialogue he has with a Volga German with whom he befriends: "You said that the city means power, but everyone here is weak." - "The city is an evil power. The strong come here, become weak. The city takes power. And now you are lost too."
"Brat" is a story about a man who tries to keep his soul in a soulless world. It's a Russian cult movie and can be a unique experience - but only if you allow it to be so.
Infact, "Brother" resembles much more a time capsule of the "Wild West" years of the Russian 90s, a reflection of the Russian soul than a crime thriller. To understand this, one must know the context of the world this movie is playing in, though.
In the 1990s, it looked like Russia was finished. The USSR had just dissolved. After being a socialist superpower for more than 70 years, Russia turned into a turbo-capitalist country where only the law of the strongest, the law of the jungle, applied. On the verge of a civil war, with local conflicts like in Chechnya flaring up, oligarchs usurped what the vanished Soviet Union had left behind. Gangsters took advantage of the power vacuum that had arisen with the withdrawal of the state and fought each other for the biggest piece of the pie. Gang shootings occurred almost every day in every major city. Returning war veterans from Grozny, many drafted at the age of 18, had never learned anything in their lives but to kill and provided a constant supply for the mercenary armies of the gang bosses.
One such veteran is our main character, Danila. Returning to his home, he keeps silent about what he has seen and done in the war, saying he never got to fight. Thus, his mother has no idea what he went through. She raves about his older brother Viktor, who, unlike him, would make himself useful making big money and tells Danila to visit him.
Although his mother apparently refuses him the love that he would have particularly needed after his assignment in Chechnya, he accepts her advice. His behavior is reminiscent of a Russian proverb: If the whole family is together, the soul is also in place. Danila takes a train to the big city Saint Petersburg, which only recently was called Leningrad, and thus symbolizes the end of an old and the beginning of an new era. The crumbling facades of the old houses there reflect the state of the whole country. Finally he meets his older brother. It becomes clear that the child his mother was so proud of makes his living not the way she had imagined it: Viktor is a contract killer. Unlike Danila, he adapted himself to the new world they are living in - a world where money determines the value of a life. For Viktor, power lays in money, and thus it's only logical for him to immediately take advantage of his little brother and use him to do all kinds of dirty work. Danila, on the other hand, has a completely different character. For him, power lays in truth. He's a very simple and uneducated young man, can't tell America apart from France, but not dumb. He knows what his brother is up to. Although it becomes clear that Danila acquired significantly superior combat skills in Chechnya, he still does what his older brother wants - after all, Viktor is his own flesh and blood.
Danila feels lost in the big city of Saint Petersburg. In one scene you see him buying CDs of his favorite rock band Nautilus, happy as a child, in another he's committing brute force. He is torn between the things he loves and his cruel surroundings. His peers make fun of his "old-fashioned" taste in music (which you can hear throughout the film) and naivety, while the elderly reject his violent way of life. He tries to protect the woman he fell in love with, but ends up only hurting her. What happens to him can be paraphrased in a dialogue he has with a Volga German with whom he befriends: "You said that the city means power, but everyone here is weak." - "The city is an evil power. The strong come here, become weak. The city takes power. And now you are lost too."
"Brat" is a story about a man who tries to keep his soul in a soulless world. It's a Russian cult movie and can be a unique experience - but only if you allow it to be so.