My Joy

Three main issues = (1) Incredibly irritating to follow unless you know beforehand that the movie is composed of a series of short stories from different time periods. What adds to this problem is that the characters are mostly rough looking bearded Russians sometimes shot in dim light, therefore, it's hard to tell when a new character is being introduced or if it's the same rough looking bearded Russian as before. (2) The short stories themselves aren't really stories but a series of violent occurrences. (3) Since the film is not plot driven it must be making some type of statement or social commentary; unfortunately, that statements been made many times before in better fashion.

Regardless of the good casting, acting and camera work, I left at 2/3 of the running time. Same did 20 others before me. Yet, no real exodus was at hand. I left roughly 750 viewers behind, and I did see no restless moves of potential followers. Am I wrong??

The story began as advertised with a truck driver who has a long journey before him. He has to deal with a lot of people underway, all with no good intentions whatsoever. At first that seemed to be the intended framework for this movie: a series of adventures in different areas as building blocks, having the truck driver and his journey as binding element.

However, I got lost after 1 hour. New stories appeared with new people. The common denominator of showing people with bad intentions stayed the main theme throughout, but the connecting truck driver was missing. That got me confused. I am prepared to accept that I may have missed something essential.

Aforementioned main theme was depressing. Maybe there was a happy ending, or some moral to tie it all together. If so I missed it, due to my leaving early. So be it.

No Sergei Loznitsa...it was my joy. In his first fictional feature Loznitsa captures in a Kafka-esque adventure the joys (few they may be) and ills of post-Communist society. It is scathing, funny, horrifying, insightful and everything in between. The writing is impeccable and never dips off or drags for a moment. I watched this film when it was first released and there was no doubt I would watch any and everything Loznitsa would make.

To start with, for direction, cinematography and photography this is a very very beautiful film. The plot tells a tragic story that crosses the trip of a truck driver, a story of violence, moral and material poverty, injustice, corruption, which will involve himself too as a victim.

First of all, I want to say that the film simply blew me away. This film, Sergei Loznitsa's first feature is not only the best film (and discovery) of the year, but one of the biggest and most important works in cinema of this century.

Before, Loznitsa was a documentary film maker and this effect can be seen in his fiction film. It is not only true and violent, but also very unconventional, different (truly ascetic, and here can be seen influence of Loznitsa's mentor, Robert Bresson), Loznitsa's use of long take is truly remarkable, in Russian cinema, long take has been used very ofter, beginning from Tarkovsky, then Shepitko, Sokurov, Zvyagintsv... but Loznitsa's use is different and unique, he absolutely refuses style (there is no disgusting exploitation of manner, that spoils Zvyagintsev's overrated, stupid and pointless "Vozvrascheniye"), he doesn't have style as a director, the film itself creates its style and language (and trust me, it's much difficult and much remarkable).

And Loznitsa does very bold thing: he destroys notion of deep shot. Yes, Kiarostami shot films with digital camera (as Loznitsa does), but his shot is extremely static and Loznitsa makes very long travelings with hand held camera, what's truly new thing and it also creates a feeling of claustrophobia, of closed circle, of No Exit and it's really conceptual use of primitive cinematic method.

It's extremely difficult film, but it's not art house and it's not the proud film, so called "not for everyone". It IS for everyone, but on the other hand, it should be watched very carefully: consider that you'll be shocked and maybe even depressed but I have one very useful advise: if you decide to watch this TRUE masterpiece, be patient and watch it till the end.

It's really worth it.