Zheleznaya pyata oligarkhii (1998) User Reviews

Beautiful images, but not a great film.

[Martijn · 7/10 · 31 January 2000]

This is one of the most beautifully filmed movies I've seen in my life. One of the weirdest too. The basic plot is simple: eccentric (or maybe just insane) Nikolai Petrovich comes to St. Petersburg to overthrow the oligarchy. The oligarchy doesn't like that and sends its agents after him. Bashirov, however, tells the story in what are basically a bunch of absurd sketches kept (barely) together by a bombastic, 19th century style voice-over. Some sketches are quite good if you're into absurd humour, but a lot of them are not, often because of Bashirov's own overacting. And they don't connect too well, making the film hard to understand sometimes, but that's probably on purpose.

This is the best post_socialistic_realistic film I'd seen

[lobo-35 · 10/10 · 22 December 1999]

Bashirov is the brilliant paranoidal type actor. He played all crazyest roles in Russian cinema. This is his debut as film director. And ....

Good movie, at the first

Strrrange!

[maaike · 23 April 1999]

I actually had a good time during this film, but that was more because of my sheer wonder than because of the film itself. What a totally weird film! There's this guy who preaches what looks like socialism to the workers in modern Russia. He doesn't get any response from them, but he is being shadowed by some mysterious men in black. This is about all the story it has and it's totally incomprehensible. All through I had this stunned feeling of what the hell is this? It was so outrageously vague it was funny. The photography was pretty good, but don't go and see this if you like a story line, or dialogue.