Khrustal

This is the first official submission of Belarus to the Academy Awards in 22 years and... it's an interesting choice. I'm going to say right now that my feelings for this movie are neutral. I really liked the premise of a young woman, stuck in post-soviet Belarus, wanting to escape to the US and go to Chicago, the birthplace of House music, as she puts it. The soft-punk-like attitude and Slavic imagery give the movie a lot of colors and hype you up from the very beginning but the magic starts to dim down upon hitting the town of Crystal. The film gets a bit annoying there, displaying some pseudo-naivety from certain characters but by the end, there's a piercing bitterness that I happened to appreciate.

Overall, the film is not bad, but it is rather weak on many fronts. There are a lot of rough edges that make the watching experience not as smooth as it could of be. The main up-side to this movie would have to be the main character Evelina (often shortened as Velya), who often looks like the "spot the anime protagonist meme" when she's in the crown, and her determined, yet care-free, attitude is easy to follow.