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THE POPCORN REEL FILM REVIEW/"Cargo 200" (Gruz
200)
In The U.S.S.R. In 1984, A Carnival Of
Death And Madness
By
Omar P.L. Moore/January 2,
2009
"Cargo 200" is like a maliciously trained pit bull; it nips relentlessly at your
ankles, until it finally sinks its teeth in and doesn't let go. Alexey
Balabanov's film tells the stories of atrocities committed by the Russian
authorities during the latter stages of 1984, as Communism in the Soviet Union
is in its waning days before the onset of Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and
Glasnost. Based on true events -- and when one sees that designation in a
film one should typically be wary -- "Cargo 200" (a term for Russian soldiers
returning to the motherland in zinc-lined coffins from the failed war in
Afghanistan), tells the story of Angelica (Agniya Kuznetsova), the daughter of
the Secretary of the regional party committee is kidnapped. What happens
to Angelica is cruel, brutal and unrelenting. If what you see isn't enough
to turn your stomach, the carnival of death that surrounds and finally
overwhelms Mr. Balabanov's film should just about do it.
In "Cargo 200", which opened exclusively today in New York City at the Cinema
Village, Zhurov (Alexei Poluyan) is a sociopath who claims to be Angelica's wife
-- he's a Norman Bates type who wants to prove himself to his drunken and
oblivious mother, who shouts racial epithets at the television and eats while
buzzing flies populate her home. She hears continuous gunshots and shouts
from people in obvious pain close by but tries to ignore it all. In
classic conflict-of-interest fashion, her son is a police chief who is
conducting investigations of both a murder committed in the suburban house he
owns and the kidnapping of Angelica. Meanwhile, Valera (Leonid
Bichevin), an adulterate drunkard and drug-dealing man who met Angelica at a
disco just hours earlier and drives her to Zhurov's house in search of alcohol,
has managed to escape the scene of the kidnapping. Where art thou, drug
dealer, you ask? Zhurov (based loosely on infamous Russian serial killer
Gennady Mikhasevich) seems not to care. He is too busy being a symbolic
tablet of the inhumanity of Soviet law enforcement, one of the most loyal
enforcers in the Gulag that the late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote about.
In every situation, the matter immediately before Zhurov is the one for which he
cares most. (There's an additional character who repeatedly states that he
is a professor of scientific Atheism, and he is as much a foreshadowing of the
film's events as anyone. How can there be a god, one might ask, if he or
she allows these inhumane things we see to take place?)
The production notes for "Cargo 200" (aka Gruz 200) state that Mr. Balabanov's
well-known quote is "if you are given lined paper -- write across the lines."
In this, his eleventh film, Mr. Balabanov doesn't just write, he splatters his
script page (and the screen) with the passion and urgency of a young teenager
who has been ignored for years. (Think of the title subject of Pearl Jam's
1990's song "Jeremy".) The director wants your attention. He gets
it. Mr. Balabanov knows how to push our buttons and anger his audience
with Zhurov's extremes. There's a Hitchcockian feel to "Cargo 200", of
being trapped in a nightmare. The film was released in Russia in 2007 to
critical praise and considered one of Mr. Balabanov's best (he directed the
trilogy of "Brother" films.) Everything about the "Cargo 200" cinematic
landscape and tone is cold and exacting -- except ironically, much of the
Russian weather. Alexander Siminov's cinematography evokes a Sam Peckinpah-like
sensibility: raw, stark and a little lurid. Mr. Balabanov comes from the
school of filmmakers like Mr. Peckinpah ("Wild Bunch", "Straw Dogs"), Bruno
Dumont ("Flanders", "Twentynine Palms") and Gaspar Noe ("I Stand Alone") who
shock us with the random actions of their anti-heroes and make statements that
linger long after the end credits have run their course.
Films or documentary features can be good
without necessarily being entertaining even if they are downer material
("Schindler's List", "Night And Fog",
"Jonestown: The Life
And Death Of Peoples' Temple", etc.,) but a film that isn't
entertaining and isn't particularly good -- well, that's "Cargo 200" in a
nutshell. You never know what you are going to get in Mr. Balabanov's film
but once you get a hint of what lurks around the corner, you get it -- again and
again. It's not that "Cargo 200" attempts to be outrageous or gratuitous,
as has been the case with some of the films by American directors like Todd
Solondz (specifically "Storytelling"), but Mr. Balabanov's film plays as a
continuous reel of misadventures and exploits that reek of pulp. If you
were to watch a string of movies back to back, say, "Pulp Fiction", "Paris
Trout", "Blue Velvet", "Irreversible" and "Straw Dogs" and take the worst of the
situations that occur in each of them, "Cargo 200" is what you'd wind up with.
(That may be a convenient way to explain this film, but it isn't necessarily
inaccurate either.)
It matters little that some of the disturbing things we see in "Cargo 200" may
have taken place in reality; there just isn't much of a story here that connects
us enough to care, beyond the obvious alarm. (There's a deeper oddity and
perverseness to the film that is clearly meant as satire.) In the end we
are horrified and numbed rather than engaged and enlightened. If
portraying the horrors of the late-Soviet era is the goal of director Alexey
Balabanov, then he succeeds mightily.
"Cargo 200" (Gruz 200) is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of
America, although it contains graphic violence including rape via the forced
insertion of a bottle, and some sexual content. It is definitely intended
for an adult audience. The film is in the Russian language, with English
subtitles. The film's duration is one hour and 30 minutes.
E-mail Omar:
editor@popcornreel.com
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