Oligarkh

I'm absolutely surprised that people in the West and especially in US watch this movie. Equally, I'm surprised they read War and Peace, Idiot, Crime and Punishment, Fathers and Sons etc.

This is not to say the movie is of the same magnitude as the books in the list, rather that it's equally deep and ought to be equally strange for a westerner. And, as usual, the moral of the story is ( kind of ) based on a piece of ( Galich, "One more time about the devil" ) poetry, and poetry is never easy to translate.

From my point of view, the story is entertaining and educating - to me. It's a little scary - to me, meaning "thank god I was too young to be a part of it", but it certainly is not "herky-jerky", characters are definitely well-developed. I was actually quite surprised how convincing the acting and the dialogs were.

Someone said the movie "asks more questions than it answers", I'd say it's what a good movie should do! Art is actually about asking questions, not answering them. If you want answers, turn to religion.

I rate the movie 10 out of 10 ( though it would be about 96 out of 100, some minor technicalities ).