My dad is from the USSR and emigrated to Southern Brooklyn, and I still live around there. Leon's Fantasy Cut is a phenomenal portrayal of the first-generation Brooklyn experience, and a relatable commentary on modern-day loss and alienation. Not to say Iggy and George are just victims of circumstance. They offer up valid criticisms on the irony of adversity as explained to you by a rich-Connecticut girl. Yes, Ella and much of Bushwick, try waiting in a few bread lines (and stop BSing about theories you learned at the New School).
Yuriy -- he's Sea Gate, a gated Brooklyn community where I saw half of the USSR first gens either go to Stuyvesant or start heroin. Very little in-between. Perhaps that's where we the Georges and Iggys come in-- not bad guys, not great guys, acutely aware of the mediocrity of their lives and surroundings, but incapable of effective change. They don't want to take the sanitation exam and settle; they still have drive. They've seen model immigrants-- hats off to Leon-- and their parents didn't have shoes. There's immense guilt that they can't reach those heights.
Even if not first gen, or with familial ties to the USSR, Leon's Fantasy Cut speaks to the frustration and pressure of the late 20s-30s to reach creative or professional fulfillment, or to submit to a toxic-hustle culture that sends you to the hospital so you can brag about that, too, Yaniv-style. There doesn't seem to be a middle-ground answer except continuous up-hill battle, and this is the beauty of Leon's Fantasy Cut.
Yuriy -- he's Sea Gate, a gated Brooklyn community where I saw half of the USSR first gens either go to Stuyvesant or start heroin. Very little in-between. Perhaps that's where we the Georges and Iggys come in-- not bad guys, not great guys, acutely aware of the mediocrity of their lives and surroundings, but incapable of effective change. They don't want to take the sanitation exam and settle; they still have drive. They've seen model immigrants-- hats off to Leon-- and their parents didn't have shoes. There's immense guilt that they can't reach those heights.
Even if not first gen, or with familial ties to the USSR, Leon's Fantasy Cut speaks to the frustration and pressure of the late 20s-30s to reach creative or professional fulfillment, or to submit to a toxic-hustle culture that sends you to the hospital so you can brag about that, too, Yaniv-style. There doesn't seem to be a middle-ground answer except continuous up-hill battle, and this is the beauty of Leon's Fantasy Cut.
