Aleksei Balabanov’s brutal, fetid vision of personal sadism and political policy intermingled is the only work of serious, modern social criticism in recent memory that actually made me want to puke. This is a compliment of the highest order.

That only begins to describe how disgusting it is. There are parts of it I still haven’t made myself watch a 2nd time. (It’s harder, now that I know what’s coming.) But there are overtly religious parts at the beginning and end to make one think.

The one at the beginning helps set the stage. It’s a vodka-fueled disagreement about the existence of God, with an unreformed sexual abuser of young girls who is also a convicted murderer taking the side of God’s existence.

A spoiler follows. If you want to watch the film first, go here:

The surprise is not too far from the end end, where one of the characters goes to a church and asks about the procedure for christening. An old woman tells him it’s not a procedure, it’s a ceremony. And then she tells him that while he waits for the Father he should sit over there and pray. And he goes and sits down.

There’s not a lot more than that to it. One isn’t sure if he’s still running from his responsibilities and the filth of his world, or whether he’s now headed in a new direction. If he is, it’s the only hopeful moment in the whole film. But there is reasonable doubt even about that.

Back to procedure vs ceremony. I wonder what the Russian words that are translated that way mean. Is the woman telling him something like, “It’s not a rite, it’s a sacrament?” Is procedure something people do vs ceremony being something God does?

At the beginning we are told that the film is based on true events. I wish I knew more about the true event behind this part of the story.

(I just now removed some of the details to make this a bit less of a spoiler than it was.)

Tonight we finished watching Ostrov. Some random comments:

• Some of the camera work (and scenery) reminded me of Vozvrashcheniye (The Return), which is the first Russian movie I watched, and which I still think is the best one I’ve seen. I’ll give Ostrov a “5″ at Netflix, too, though.
• This is the first film in which I’ve heard a Russian chorus, sacred or otherwise, singing off-key. I thought it perhaps wasn’t possible.
• I was surprised that the big surprise near the end wasn’t a lot more surprising for the participants. I presume it was done this way on purpose. I have no reason to think it was due to a lack of acting ability.
• I see that Pyotr Mamanov really is against abortion.
• My wife was wondering why Father Job is called Job. Do Russian monks really take that name? And what is the symbolism. Why wasn’t he called Father Cain? He had a good way of demonstrating Cain’s sacrifice.

I’ll be watching it at least once more before sending it back, for language-learning purposes.

I was surprised at the reference to abortion. I didn’t know it was allowed to say things like that in movies, even in Russian movies.