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Reviews
Brat (1997)
Potboiler and dissapointing
This movie is much inferior to its sequel Brother 2, and some other masterpieces of Balabanov, like the bleakly realistic Cargo 200 . That it is a no budget film is not a problem, many Eastern European movies are and are far superior. This is a commercial hit, and it is a Russian version of a Hollywood movie. Decent acting, but ultimately boring and lacking on artistic front, it is nevertheless improvement compared to the similar Russian cinema of the day, worth mostly for its realistic portrayal of the Russian decadence in the 90s and beyond.
The movie is tailored as populist take pandering to its Russian public. Brother 2 is more nationalistic but also much more artistically accomplished. This move was meant to earn money and it did, so Balabanov used it to make his arthouse masterpiece "Of freaks and men" that has much more to say about a true state of "Russian soul" than this one. All foreigners are portrayed in bad light. The murderous cute boy Danila (actor died in an avalanche, fittingly, a few years later, ushering him into legend in the eyes of vull gar Russian public) goes on to search for his identity by dating corrupt married women and druggies an accurate portrayal of womanhood in Russia to this day.
The mobsters are all realistic, common Russian folk, who practice rr ape (that they became famous for during WWII, so much so that Yugoslav leader Djilas had to scorn Stalin for that, while Stalin defended the "poor soldier lover boys" and approved the rr apes as normal, thinking nothing about the innocent victims, he tried and often managed to enn slave. Fittingly, being kicked out of proud Yugoslavia and when trying to off leader Tito, getting an apt and bad ass message from fellow autocrat, much more sophisticated than the Georgian proudest son - "We caught 7 people trying to kill me. If you don't stop sending them, I will have to send one myself. There will be no need to send another." ). Movie deals ample doses of adult terry, murder, petty mob and Russian version of western hubris and hypocrisy, that is here documented at its most wounded, washed in copious amounts of vodka.
Having been to Russia at its deepest point of ruin, at the time this movie was made, I can attest to its realism. The unclean fly markets at every metro station, immorality, adoration for worst of western "culture" or dismissing it with unearned hubris, all ring very real. President Putin got Russia out of this mud, and it is no surprise that he is ever so popular. Despite it being essentially a populist commercial Russian potboiler pandering and complimenting the worst instincts of this sometimes great, but often self absorbed nation, it is worth a watch if only to understand how decline and decadence look like up close. Russians might tap themselves over their thick shoulders telling that it is movie speaking only to themselves, but this movie is in fact very successful not only in over the top pandering managing to earn director enough money to move to more serious projects (luckily for everyone), but also for revealing, beneath the nationalistic facade, the true face of well deserved decline after decades of Russian imperial lism in the cloak of being the main bearer of socialist idea that they almost ruined - a fate that awaits the Amuricans too, as the Soviets were as conceited as they are before hitting the rock bottom during the well deserved but awakening Yeltsin years
Brat 2 (2000)
Great movie from Russia
This movie shows, with a gentle and objective lens, how patetic Americans can be in ordinary matters. Rasist, cowardly, interested only in money, shallow, arrogant. Yet, this movie is subtle enough so that Amuricans, while insulted, would not exactly get the point as they are typically challenged. That is both emotionally and intellectually. A brilliant portrayal of contemporary Amurica shows how, in any moral universe with any grain of objectivity, Amuricans, for the most part, are beneath Russian "mobsters" aka ordinary Russian people. Yet, this gentle movie shows that some Amuricans, like sincere truck drivers or even some career obsessed minorities have some trace of humanity deeply buried beneath the shallow and dis figuring facade. Almost prohibited in Amurica for its sincere portrayal of parallels of Russia at its most impoverished and America at its peek (which has since long passed), shows the superb advantage of moral over shiny emptiness, truth over money, as brilliantly demonstrated in a scene with a petrified american businessman (attempting to play chess, a russian national sport, and drink vodka, a cruel joke as, muricans are more apt at checkers and are too much of snowy cornflakes for vodka) aka low covardly life of average corporate Joe, who is allowed to live by cute Russian avenger but shows much less digg nitty than his Russian, also spared, counterpart. This true face of Amurica is revealed as much nastier deep down than in any slumm worldwide, even more now than at its peek when this movie was made. The movie consists from two parts, one set in Russia, and other in America, with parallel business practices, celebrity cultures, even taxi drivers. Despite the sympathy shown by the brilliant director, Amurica does come much worse off than Russia, but better than it deserves. Amurican snowy cornflakes are shedding water from their eyes to this very day when seeing this masterpiece, trying to mum even objective reviews but they are not nearly deb nunked enough in their delusions, and that is the only, ever so slightly, fault of this movie.