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Showing posts with label Aleksei Balabanov. Show all posts

Friday, October 1, 2010

Aleksei Balabanov - Gruz 200 (Груз-200) AKA Cargo 200 (2007)

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5333/imdbimage.jpg

Quote:

The term Cargo 200 refers to the bodies of USSR soldiers brought home from Afghanistan in the 1980s, but in Aleksei Balabanov’s film of the same name every character seems destined to become Cargo 200, either actually ending up dead or at least ending up in a dead-end quagmire of pointless violence and immoral behaviour. Unflinching would be a gentle word to describe this portrayal of a doomed humanity, but the exact point of the film beyond its doomsday message is never really clear. Unlike other recent excursions into nihilism as expressed through heartless sex and pointless violence (Mortier’s Ex Drummer comes to mind as a recent example), Balabanov’s film never goes beyond stating the obvious.

Gruz 200 caused quite a stir upon its release in Russia and it is easy to understand why. The director of popular features such as Voyna (War) and Pro urodov i lyudey (Of Freaks and Men) here goes overboard for a tale so dark and explicit that even what at first sight appears to be a happy ending actually arrives with an evil and sadistic grin. Perhaps it says something about the human condition, but as the Russian outcry might indicate, it is doubtful a lot of people will want to hear it, much less pay for it to see it.

The film is set during the war with Afghanistan in 1984 but takes place entirely in Russia, in a dreary industrial regional in and around Leninisk. Artem (Leonid Gromov) is a professor of "scientific atheism" whose car breaks down one night when on his way to his mother in Leninisk. He asks for help at a nearby cottage on the heath owned by the god-fearing Aleksei (Aleksei Serebryakov) and his practical wife Tonya (Natalya Akimova), who sell grain spirits.

Unbeknownst to Artem, not much after his serious conversation about the impossibility of both the existence of God or one’s soul with Aleksei and his subsequent departure, his possible future in-law Valera (Leonid Bichevin) shows up at the same cottage to buy some more booze after a night of heavy drinking. With him he brings Angelika (Agniya Kuznetsova), a friend of his girlfriend and the daughter of a highly placed Soviet official.

Their stay at the cottage starts a chain of events that will impact the lives of all in a dramatic way, with the evil and sadistic Captain Zhurov (Aleksei Poluyan) at the heart of the whirlpool of shocking deeds that follow, though all characters are at least partly to blame. At best, characters are reluctant cowards, but most of them are worse. A lot worse.

The film’s shocking final third contains some apocalyptic scenes set in the bedroom of Zhurov. These scenes give the words "torture porn" its two original meanings back and then combines them to disturbing effect. Zhurov’s stone-drunk mother (Valentina Andryukova) apathetically continues to watch Soviet television as her son lives out his absurd fantasies in the adjacent room, likely mirroring the stupor some audience members might find themselves in when watching Gruz 200. Perhaps apathy is the best remedy. Pass the vodka!

http://rapidshare.com/files/42332891/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42334201/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42335758/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42337113/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42338042/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42338994/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42340147/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part7.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/42340797/Gruz.200.DVDRip.part8.rar

http://rapidshare.com/files/134070178/Cargo200-ENGsubs.rar

no pw

http://rapidshare.com/files/256379857/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256475373/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256593814/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256490831/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256380811/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part05.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/256500066/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256512730/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256513001/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256381924/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256602775/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256599855/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256517838/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part13.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/256623179/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part15.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256530442/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part16.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256522656/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part17.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256539222/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part18.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256550581/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part19.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/256588234/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part24.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/256568947/Gruz.200.2007.720p.BluRay.Rus.part25.rar

eng subs:
http://www.box.net/shared/bufz6fm6g7

no pw

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Aleksei Balabanov - Brat 2 (2000)

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f50/croaker-bc/brat2_cover.jpg

From Cinemafoundation:
Once the safest (police) state in Europe, today's Russia is all too often painted as a dark citadel of crime. It was only a matter of time before a fictional anti-hero emerged from Moscow headlines and startled world movie audiences. Alexei Balabanov's "Brother," (1997) a smash hit in Russia that is still being discovered by Westerners at film festivals and on DVD, might just be that emblematic film that starts a saga. "Brother 2" continues the adventures of Danila Bagrov, (Sergei Bodrov, Jr.) a deceptively innocent-looking young man, seemingly eager to please, whose remarkable energy and ingenuity is totally devoted to wiping out his many, many criminal enemies. The first film took him from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Now Danila Bagrov's talents meet a new challenge--America. Like the hero of Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," you reluctantly admire Danila’s steely nerve and physical courage even as his cheerful amorality and itchy trigger finger chills the blood. The violence is as stylized as a Jackie Chan film; few non-combatants stumble into the crossfire to mess up your growing attachment to young Bagrov. Not just cold, witty entertainment, the "Brother" films say something interesting and true about post-Communist Russian life, just as "The Godfather" has something to say about postwar America.

http://rapidshare.com/files/340828860/Brat_2_-_2000_RUS__ACTION_COMEDY_CRIME__BOBIK_.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/340834600/Brat_2_-_2000_RUS__ACTION_COMEDY_CRIME__BOBIK_.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/340840235/Brat_2_-_2000_RUS__ACTION_COMEDY_CRIME__BOBIK_.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/340844009/Brat_2_-_2000_RUS__ACTION_COMEDY_CRIME__BOBIK_.part4.rar

700MB.
ENGLISH SUBTITLES INCLUDED
NO PASSWORD
AUDIO RUSSIAN

Aleksei Balabanov - Voyna AKA War (2002)

cinemastrikesback.com wrote:

Night Patrol (or, if you prefer Night Watch) may be the most talked-about Russian film of the moment, but the real star of young Russian cinema is director Alexei Balabanov, and his recent film The War expands on his already diverse track record. The War probes the current situation in Chechnya, and poses a radical change from his gangster films (Brat, Brat 2) and subversive dramas (Of Freaks and Men). Perhaps most importantly, the blatant patriotism evident in Brat 2 was toned down significantly in The War, an essential element for a film on such a touchy subject.
cinemastrikesback.com

citypaper.net wrote:

Alexei Balabanov’s blunt drama seems constructed expressly to attack western naivete about the brutality of warfare, which either makes it incredibly timely or utterly redundant. Alexei Chadov, in a coldly effective performance, plays a Siberian soldier who leads a foppish British actor (Ian Kelly) into war-torn Chechnya to rescue the latter’s girlfriend from Islamic extremists. (The two were captured while performing Hamlet in Georgia.) Kelly may just play an annoying character too effectively, but you soon grow tired of his exasperated whining; when a man is pleading for his fiancee’s life, the foremost thought in your mind shouldn’t be wishing he would just shut it. It’s clear the movie’s heart is with Chadov, anyway, and his coldly pragmatic attitude. "This is war; you have to kill people to win," he says. The film’s low-budget production values only increase its authenticity; you doubt that’s a prop jeep they’re pushing over a cliff, and might even wonder if those rocket launchers might be the real deal. Bloody and confrontational, War is tough going, but worth the journey.
citypaper.net