My Joy [Import]

It was said that American films were good for the box office, but Russian films were good for the soul. That was back when Russian was all 15 republics and it was the USSR. Nothing has changed, it has only improved and Mein Gluk is one of the darkest, if not THE darkest films ever made. I'd put it in a league with A. Tarkovsky's 1979 film "Stalker" for pure paranoia, insanity and photography only possible in an expanse like Russia. I would not advise watching this too close to bedtime, or while drinking a lot of Vodka. This film will 'creep you out' and it will do this without the special effects, camera tricks or other cinematic gadgetry used in the West. I give this 5 stars for being totally astonishing. I could name scenes I found 'impossible' but that might limit your enjoyment. If you cannot buy this, borrow it or rent it. This film is worthy.

This film exudes a miasma of menace in hidden yet tangible ways and even on a soft summer day. It is very uncomfortable to watch and unnerving. It devolves into later scenarios that can be brutal or heart-wrending but all woven into a realistic tableaux. Life in Russia is not this grim but it can get that grim so there is no escaping from this film's comment on post- soviet Russia.
A maddening fault in the film is what happened to the naive truck driver in the beginning. He was transporting flour. And next, there is a taciturn, hardened, bearded man selling flour in the market. IZ it the same man after he fell through the cracks? I only got a good look at him towards the end of the film. I was able to verify it's the same guy from comparing opening shots of the truck-driver. It falls in with the story's thread because I had originally thought " The poor bugger- the fool needs a gun", which fits with the ending. Falling through a crack means we do not get to see how he fell through, which mirrors the nature of cracks themselves. This lack of accountability is a re-occuring theme in the film.
There is a terrible anonimity to individuals and yet each is yet living their life in their own quiet or hidden ways, in earnest. The value of human life becomes lifeless when there is no rule of law in soceity. This seems to be the message of the film. There is a scene of an old soldier recounting doing Stalin's dirty buisness in the purges as if to show not much has changed. The film is scary and sad because it does not veer from the fragility of people's lives, where to be kind is to be an outsider and therefore vunerable.
The film does not use extras; at one point it pans for quite a long time on the locals at a small town in the middle of nowhere. Of course he asked them not to grin or crack jokes at the time but it does paint a grim and stoic picture; at one end some are lost and dis-orientated; others making do; the needto have an angle. Then at the other end, the nasty, ruthless stuff that goes on at times, which the film exposes.
I liked the philosphy of the truck-driver the bearded one meets at the end. Don't interefere, he said, and if you do don't be greedy because that is interfering too. : keep a card up your sleeve. It was a suggestive double-edged gem that seemed to be a metaphor for how Russia will dig themselves out of post-communism. It almost seemed to refer to how Putin is working behind the scenes , like a spook still, to keep and regain order. There is nothing fair or democratic about how america or the uk or many european countries run behind the scenes. We have our own ogliarchy when 1% own 40% of the country's wealth. But our country has enough weath and infrastructure for enough crumbs to fall from the table to keep things civilized. Russia is growing in wealth; it could also happen in the future. People rig order behind the scenes even in anarchy. It's the corrupt order imposed from the top that is the problem. The truck driver imposes order on anarchy at the end as an individual. It chillingly mirrors the same actions of the old guy he picks up right at the start of the film.
There are a few scenes that are too darkly lit.
It was distracting not having a clue who certain people are and how they fit in. Although, as with the truck-driver, this could probably be resolved by watching it a few times? A fragmented film to illustrated a fragmented soceity but it is still annoying viewing at times

Snippets of life in rural Soviet Russia with a raw phantasmagoric quality that is often elusive and difficult to pin down. This subtitled film opens with a somewhat conventional and interesting storyline of a wayward truck driver, but ultimately gives way to lot of shifting scenes where shifty characters predominate.

Nonethelessss, one is given a great visual window into the unforgiving wintry tundra and the feral, primitive villagers living in an authoritarian but nonethess lawlass state. This film is obviously not for the faint hearted given recurrent themes of brutality, thievery, cruelty and misanththopy. I should add that it was difficult to keep track of the comings and goings of this rather large cast which otherwise did dispaly exceptional acting skills.