This Isn't Toronto, You Know

Movie #62 – ‘4’
It was bound to happen. I saw a foreign art flick that I didn’t really like. It started out quite good, following three apparently random people in Russia (a piano-tuner, a meat-seller, and a prostitute). Yes, of course the only female lead in the movie is a prostitute. What other job could a woman possibly have? The three leads happen to frequent the same bar late at night and tell elaborate lies to one another, which is pretty interesting. Then the film takes a sharp turn into extreme misanthropy, and was unpleasant enough that I kept wishing for it to hurry up and end.
The female lead finds out her sister is dead, and goes to the town where she lives, which is solely inhabited by a bunch of 90-year-old, alcoholic cronies and her suicidal boyfriend. The director lets us watch these ancient women screech, drink insane amounts of alcohol, take their clothes off (!) and pour wine on themselves while singing untranslated songs for about an hour. They also make hideous dolls out of chewed-up bread crumbs. I couldn’t decide if the director is a misogynist or a misanthrope (I guess a little of both). Anyway, I’m glad I don’t share his insanely dark worldview. Yes, I get it, humans are really greedy animals (parallels are constantly drawn between the human characters and a pack of wild dogs). To see a much better and more humanist treatment of this same thesis, watch Birdie.