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12.00 | Stadthalle | National Hits
DEAD MAN'S BLUFF | ZHMURKI [6/10]
Alexey Balabanov | Russia 2005 | 110 min (timed)
Question: can a film whose only non-white character is the only one who might be described as sympathetic and/or intelligent figure be considered racist? Balabanov (once straight-facedly described by a critic as "Russia's David Lynch"), his co-scriptwriter (an ex-footballer who reportedly wrote it for a bet) and a cast almost entirely comprising major Russian stars deliver a riotous, stunningly violent, deliberately rough-and-ready parody of mid-90s gangster movies.
The ropey plot sees a pair of ambitious gangsters - one the wisecracking "brain" of the outfit, the other the hulkingly psychopathic "brawn" - embroiled in a messy turf war between rival factions in their home town of Nizhny-Novgorod. In-jokes abound from start to finish, not least the presence of Russian cinema's Mr Big, Nikita Mikhalkov, looking like a late-in-the-day Oliver Reed as a crime-boss decked out in suitably hideous fashions.
The gag being that Mikhalkov has famously had a public pop at Balabanov more than once over the years, joining the not-insubstantial body of opinion who reckon him a pernicious influence. Dead Man's Bluff isn't likely to win over such naysayers - if anything it's more of an offhand "f*ck you" to the critics. Emphatically not the most likeable of films, it requires a very strong stomach is for the kill-crazy rampage that is the final act, including a wince-inducing bullet-removal that rivals Paul Bettany's agonies back in Master and Commander. If nothing else, however, Balabanov deserves some kind of credit for so full-bloodedly having the courage of his (perhaps-dubious) convictions.
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14.00 | Stadthalle | Focus
THE DISTRICT! | NYÓCKER! [8/10]
Áron Gauder | Hungary 2004 | 89 min (timed)
An absolute blast from beginning to end: if there were any justice, Hungary's savagely energetic animated feature The District! would score a dark-horse Oscar shock over the relatively tame and pedestrian likes of Wallace and Gromit, Corpse Bride and Chicken Little. A nomination just wouldn't be enough.
Jawdropping for both its technical virtuosity and its anything-goes subject-matter (drugs and sex abound, guaranteeing an 18 cert in the UK), The District! - in which a motley gang of racially-mixed teenagers defend their 'turf' from all-comers - is like a breezily postmodern hybrid of Parker/Stone (South Park) and Ealing comedy (Passport to Pest, perhaps?), with a post-modern dash of Romeo + Juliet, the Baz Luhrmann version rather than Shakespeare's, of course.
As a live-action picture The District! would be remarkable enough, but the animation on display - a kind of sepia-grimy three-dimensional, more realistic variant on Waking Life - kicks it into another gear entirely. The film-makers' imaginations run riot, with results that include a lengthy, utterly headspinning jaunt back to the Stone Age via a hand-held time-travel device, and Team America-style cameos from Bush, Blair and Bin Laden culminating in a literally explosive, and explosively funny, finale. If this wasn't enough, The District! also happens to be the niftiest and most organically coherent musical for ages - and should, regardless of their Academy Award fortunes, provide the makers with pop-video work for years to come.
{Postscript : an English-language version of The District!, with significant alterations to the script and also to the song lyrics, is currently under production and will be released in the UK during 2006. The version shown in Cottbus was the original Hungarian version. NY 24.11.05}
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Neil Young
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