Everybody (with an interest in the topic) knows the Mongol conquest of Khoresm (that is of everything to the West of China) started with a Mongol caravan which got pillaged by uncle of Khoresm Shah in Otrar. Well, here we are told what exactly had happened and how the Mongols really had it coming and how it really wasn't the fault of Central Asian Turks. Now Central Asia got it's own Andrey Rublyov movie. Yeah!
Reviews
10 Reviews
Chistilishche
(1998 TV Movie)
it _had_ potential for both a decent B-class action flick and a docu war drama...
16 December 2018
Blokpost
(1999)
The "Outpost" movie is a decent outpost movie.
16 December 2018
We are shown a comedy of everyday life on a outpost deep in hostile land which is, except for the prologue, in line with the three aristotelian unities. Except for conflict within the outpost has contacts with a mute prostitute, her sister-pimp, an investigation committee, the general, the locals (which, unlike the real-life chechens do not seem to speak Russian too well) and enemies of high rank they meet for negotioations (at vodka). This movie can serve as an inspiration for mods for a game like fallout, it can be regarded as a parable and it can be watched without translation (though some of the humor is gonna be lost). All in all it is a decent movie. It even has some romance in it, and a kawaii little animal.
The Horde
(2012)
Talented history flick paid for by the church to also be the living of saint XYZ
29 December 2014
This movie was paid for by the church so that the basic plot holds itself true to the living of saint Alexius of Moscow. Still the director managed to make the best out of it, to pack it together with a lovely tale about an overlooked page of Russian history: the impending collapse of the Golden Horde. And rotting it starts from the head, with the uncouth assassination of khan Tini Beg by his brother Jani Beg.
This is a refreshing view for historical cinema. Hitherto the Horde was never given any lines of dialogue. You might have seen Andrey Rublev by Tarkovsky: they raze a city to the ground and ride away. In Eisenstein's Nevsky they're also shown to be an amorphous sinister outside force which can intervene on someone's behalf in Russian politics but is never doing anything on their own. They've been hitherto shown as unspeakable savages, as the Borg, as the zerg but never as dramatic characters, as yet another wave of brutal Russian statesmen, akin to the Bolsheviks or to Ivan the Terrible's thugs. The movie dispels the myth the Tatar Yoke was felled by the Russians in the Grand Standing on the Ugra river. You're shown it instead has removed itself, decades in advance, in a painfully similar manner to so many other political entities on the Russian soil.
An interesting moment lost on foreign viewers is usage of language in the film. It is amusing to see some obscure Central Asian language being the prestige dialect, the lingua franca, to all of the Russians. Today it's the other way round.
This is a refreshing view for historical cinema. Hitherto the Horde was never given any lines of dialogue. You might have seen Andrey Rublev by Tarkovsky: they raze a city to the ground and ride away. In Eisenstein's Nevsky they're also shown to be an amorphous sinister outside force which can intervene on someone's behalf in Russian politics but is never doing anything on their own. They've been hitherto shown as unspeakable savages, as the Borg, as the zerg but never as dramatic characters, as yet another wave of brutal Russian statesmen, akin to the Bolsheviks or to Ivan the Terrible's thugs. The movie dispels the myth the Tatar Yoke was felled by the Russians in the Grand Standing on the Ugra river. You're shown it instead has removed itself, decades in advance, in a painfully similar manner to so many other political entities on the Russian soil.
An interesting moment lost on foreign viewers is usage of language in the film. It is amusing to see some obscure Central Asian language being the prestige dialect, the lingua franca, to all of the Russians. Today it's the other way round.
Amusingly pretentious sex-revolution era nonsense. To be watched only when on acid.
27 September 2008
The movie consists of seemingly unrelated footage of
1.Stalinist propaganda cinema
2.Interviews and documentary footage on Wilhelm Reich
3.Explicit performance art footage
4.An American rock star (Tuli Kupferberg) wandering around New York with an assault rifle with anti-war poetry being read off-screen
5.Original footage containing
-a uniform-clad women proclaiming pseudo-communist pamphlets (f.e."celibacy is counterrevolutionary!") inspired by Wilhelm Reich's ideas,
-a Yugoslav steelworker in dire need of a sex condemning the "red bourgeoisie"
-an uptight Russian sportsman named Vladimir Ilyich reciting V.I.Lenin's writings.
They interact in quite delirious sketches which contain some violence and naked skin and some humping. The walls are decorated with Freud's and Hitler's portraits as well as with commie agitprop and Hollywood movie posters. Neither the plot nor the dialogs make sense.
A huge part of the movie is not in English, but with white hardcoded subtitles. At times they blend with the background becoming unreadable, but as a fluent speaker of Croatian and Russian I can assure you that that too was just another of the quirks intended by the author.
1.Stalinist propaganda cinema
2.Interviews and documentary footage on Wilhelm Reich
3.Explicit performance art footage
4.An American rock star (Tuli Kupferberg) wandering around New York with an assault rifle with anti-war poetry being read off-screen
5.Original footage containing
-a uniform-clad women proclaiming pseudo-communist pamphlets (f.e."celibacy is counterrevolutionary!") inspired by Wilhelm Reich's ideas,
-a Yugoslav steelworker in dire need of a sex condemning the "red bourgeoisie"
-an uptight Russian sportsman named Vladimir Ilyich reciting V.I.Lenin's writings.
They interact in quite delirious sketches which contain some violence and naked skin and some humping. The walls are decorated with Freud's and Hitler's portraits as well as with commie agitprop and Hollywood movie posters. Neither the plot nor the dialogs make sense.
A huge part of the movie is not in English, but with white hardcoded subtitles. At times they blend with the background becoming unreadable, but as a fluent speaker of Croatian and Russian I can assure you that that too was just another of the quirks intended by the author.
The Sea Is Watching
(2002)
Kurosawa is dead. Long live Kurosawa!
27 September 2006
This is a wonderful movie about a brothel in a fishing village, that could be best described with scene constellations and direction of old Kurosawa's works, combined with Dostoyevski's topics of human psychology (O-shin - Sonia Marmeladova ), Shakespeare's drama and Hans Christian Andersen's tragic and cheerfulness. The screenplay is wondrous, the scenes are colour- and beautiful some scenes stay really imprinted in my mind. The plot is interesting and unpredictable - each of the characters is very well developed and interesting - there is also a little action, so if you don't like all the sentiments you'd also come to your costs - . It is not about mysterious Geishas and proud Samurai with their Bushido pouring all out of them, but about life, work and kinds of people found everywhere at any time. A lovely and fascinating tribute to Kurosawa, certainly worth seeing.
Immortal
(2004)
This is a bad b-movie
24 January 2006
There is some Anubis uber-god guy who descends to the future earth for to create a child. If you think it's a new idea you must have lived under a rock for quite some time. Then there is some 'eugenics' organization with ugly plans about mutants (nice idea for an organization to borrow names from the Nazis. How does the public know you're evil without such a name?) and some other guy who's body the Egyptian uber-god wants to use for the called purpose and a blue alien mutant girl who is seemingly falling apart. Many things happen for no purpose, just to show what the creators have randomly animated in 3D. Some characters are real, some are 3D-models. The latter ones don't even try to look realistic and are animated terribly. They just don't fit there. Then there are some kinky scenes and speeches also having seemingly no purpose and a stupid, wanna-be-philosophic plot with no twists or anything. This movie does not give a feeling of a real movie, but a pure demonstration of computer graphics. If you like things like that, still, think twice and better go watch 30 intro videos of games made between 1996 and 2001. It wouldn't be such a waste of time like 'immorteil' is and would be just as beautiful. Don't expect more from it, then from a weird old Chinese fighting movie or you'll be terribly disappointed.
Master i Margarita
(2005)
very disappointing
26 December 2005
Most actors act horribly, the entire satire and humour from the book have been cut. It is blasphemy to make movie from a masterpiece like Bulgakov's m&m like this. The computer effects are even present when they are absolutely not necessary and look terribly. Behemot, the cat, as if it was from some kindergraden theatre, Lavrov is too old for Bulgakov's procurator, Abdulov (Koroviev), the oh-so-expensive-superstar seemingly just reads his text down without playing anything. This all is surprising, since the budget present was high. However, Basilashvili, Alexander Galibin and Filipenko (Azazello, master and Voland) are playing surprisingly good. These are the only ones. Do not watch this piece of junk before reading the book!
Dogville
(2003)
very impressing
26 December 2005
For all to know, it is a parable which not only fits to the US(most reviewers who hated it seemingly had no clue about it). After having watched the movie, especially the last scene, I was deeply impressed and it let me thinking for quite some time. Each scene fits to real life human relations, everything fits just perfectly. It is about dependence, about how it comes to exploitation. It fits to everything, it explains antisemitism etc. It reminds me on Berthold Brecht's works. I cannot understand why American wannabe patriots hated it, why it was called 'communist' or 'anti-american'. USA was taken only as an example. That is what real cinema is for, to affect thoughts, to explain human behavior, not only for cheap entertainment. I hope that there'll be more big parables or fables like this. Two thumbs up.
The Bridge
(1959)
a nice anti-war movie, but not the best
22 December 2005
I have seen the movie in original language in school back in ... 2004 :p. This movie pictures some boys with idealistic view on war until they finally see it. It could be a nice movie worth whole eight or nine points if it was made after the student disorders at the end of 60s which changed the popular point of view on the life in the third Reich. In the German village shown in the movie, everybody hates the Nazi regime to a different degree except one one-dimensional evil, bad, greedy, vile, fat and ugly guy who also finally turns out to be a coward. Another low point is that the boys fight as if they were absolutely 1337, and that on their first day in service! The good side of this movie that it shows something new about the ww2, that it shows it from the 'other side' which is seldom seen in cinema about it. The boys play quite well while the American soldier and the pacifist teacher seem to act too lively and that disturbs the experience.
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