Pro urodov i lyudey (Freaks and Men) (1998) - Aleksei Balabanov

Filmed
entirely in sepia tone and set in turn of the century Russia, the story
is centered on a man, Johann, who makes movies of women being whipped
by a "nanny". Soundtrack taken from Prokofiev's ballet, Romeo and
Juliet.


There
are moments in this deliciously subversive film when you suspect Alexei
Balabanov is being satirical and those scenes of pornographers taking
over the grand houses, only to corrupt them with their nasty habits,
refer to organised crime's stranglehold on the Russian economy, not to
mention the state of the nation.
The film is shot as a pastiche of
silent cinema, without Chaplin's famous fast motion. In old St
Petersburg the bourgeoisie live innocent and privileged lives, while in
the basement of an abandoned building tight-lipped Johan (Sergei
Makovetsky), with his smirking, sinister sidekick (Victor Sukhorukov),
organises nude spanking sessions, which are photographed and sold to
sado-masochistic postcard collectors, when not purloined by their
naughty maids.
The kind doctor has adopted asiatic Siamese twins,
who are reaching puberty and being taught to sing. His elegant wife is
blind and won't have anything to do with him under the bedclothes. The
gentle widower, who is reputed to be a railway engineer, lives with his
lovely daughter (Dinara Drukarova), blissfully ignorant of Johan's true
nature, or what he gets up to when unsupervised. Soon both these
honourable men will be gone and the circumstances of those left behind
changed irrevocably changed, not always (if ever) for the better.
When
evil triumphs, humour turns black. Glimpses of turn-of-the-century porn
has an uncomfortable, humiliating look to it. Balabanov massages human
nature's ugly heart. The film is so original and startling, it appears
playful, when really it concerns an abuse of power that feeds off trust
and decency, perverting both.
Code:
Samo registrirani korisnici mogu vidjeti linkove. Registrirajte se ovdje