And here's a movie, a cheap flick, rather, about a different dimension somewhere in the Universe that visually resembles a little dirty crime-ridden hole called St. Petersburg. Once an architectural jewel of the Soviet Union, a true world's art and history heritage site, the city was also famous for its people considered throughout the USSR as some of the most cultured and educated and known for their dashing and elegant politeness. There are many "ands" when it comes to describing a unique, exquisite micro climate that existed in Piter between, I'd say 1950s and up to, perhaps, early 90s. Then St. Petersburg's demographics have gradually mutated to their current abysmal state. At one time in the 90's, the city held one of the premier spots in number of murders, shoot-outs, explosions, innocent bystanders killed, and tourists robbed among the major cities of Russia.
Even though these horrible rates subsided ever since, the city stays true to its infamous impression on a visitor as one of the country's most unfriendly places to visit. A friend took her daughter to St. Petersburg recently - the girl was born there but hadn't visited the place ever since immigrating to the US at the age of 7. Her impression: nice museums but she'd never go and walk the streets of that dreadful place again. One trip to the place of birth, if at all, was enough for my life time, she said. Few would disagree.
Yet here's an astral projection of it all, shampooed, and dressed in fine perfume, portrayed ad nauseum with its notorious abundance of homeless people condensed to just one individual with sootish make-up who heartily eats burgers from dumpsters (homeless, or "bomzhi" in Russian, have been known to kill for such lucky pickings) and seems to live quite happily on such diet. There's an expression of outmost content on his face. Most of us don't want to have anything to do with homeless; whoever does, instantly becomes our hero. We love to see others do what we only wish we could do. The homeless, therefore, serves as a convenient yet beaten up tool for the main hero to show his larger-than-life kindness of character not only by being generally philanthropic towards the homeless but also by assisting him with certain rather overly specific tasks. They directly relate, needless to say, to the role of dumpsters and the importance of their contents in the lives of the homeless.
This is also one of those flicks where everyone lives, walks, and meets in places and streets that we seemingly know well, and sits near Neva River looking afar with a forced romantic expression on otherwise an inexpressive face. People are mannequins, streets are charming, there's no traffic and thus, no traffic jams, the air looks and feels clean, etc. In this respect, the movie is no doubt cliché-d off Amélie, a film that portrayed Montmartre as sort-of a naive kindergarten-like fantasy with friendly neighbors always on a lookout to help each other, no street crime, lots of smiles, and oh-so-cuddly situations, where main heroes live in flats costing millions with no apparent jobs that pay those millions and no inheritances of any kind. In this Russian movie, however, the heroine is dumber and behaving morbidly irritating. Her hat plays no small role. .
Yes, she wears a brain damage-styled hat straight from a Bosch paintings. Her fiancé is desperately asking her to please, please take the ugly thing off. His insistence, of course, is part of his negative image. However, he's doing so very rightfully for this pizdovataya kuritsa (pardon my Russian) already looks like a car-overran cat with the hat making her mug even more feline and, frankly, imbecilic.
She is surrounded by caricatures of characters - an array that demonstrates to us that the current state of Russian cinematography is plain dismal. In 9 out of 10 movies vomited in the last 10 years, the industry either resorted to an established formula of "bratki, krutye, nuovo-businessmen who apparently don't have any definitive job duties besides romancing..." or dumb-downed versions of tired plots of many, many good and bad (mostly the latter) foreign films, Hollywood and not. Most classical niches are occupied - in this flick, for example, there's a sickening joke of a co-worker who looks like someone the aforementioned homeless might well pair with, a boss who, despite giving the heroine hard time, is essentially a paper-thin comic relief, and so on.
Well, the movie leaves a feeling of insult. Amélie had style, class, Paris, and Audrey Tautou. For such elegant a bouquet, I forgave its sins and embraced it (after all, most did) as a fairy tale, as a parabola, as a joyfully grotesque daydreaming.
As for this putrid dreck called Piter FM, I can only say had I been in the shoes of the fiancé, she would have eaten that hat.
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