Can’t Stop the Gop(nik)

Over the past two weeks I have probably gone to the cinema far more than I should. A new job schedule has (finally) allowed me to return home without feeling brain-dead and able to do something semi-intellectual. Conveniently, a film festival was in town. In fact, there’s a British film festival that just started as well, but I unfortunately missed a screening of Chris Morris’ Four Lions last night (it’s showing again on Sunday, so here’s hoping I can nab a seat).

The theme of the 2-in-1 film festival was fairly general – art movies here, comedies there, foreign flicks thrown in for good measure – and the three films I managed to catch were vastly different [Special thanks to Kseniya and Aleksey, by the way, for abusing their influence with the organizers and giving me free tickets].

Другое Небо/Another Sky (Dmitry Mamuliya, 2010)

Probably best to start with the crap and end on a high note. Другое Небо (Droo-goy-ye Nye-boh) is an enormously depressing piece about chain-smoking estranged husband & father Ali from Central Asia who comes to Moscow in search of his wife. His nine-year-old son tags along. Nothing good happens to any of them, put bluntly.

To those not aware of the problems “guest workers” (or “gastarbeiteri” as the Russians stole it from the Germans) face in Moscow, Another Sky highlights their plight and shows off the supposed monotony of their existence in the capital. Truth be told, it was just plain boring – mostly because shots lingered on the side of the father’s head walking down streets and corridors, and he barely utters a word throughout. The first five times are fine, we get the message: it’s shitty and that’s the life some of them have. Is it necessary that the whole film be an exposition-less snooze-a-thon? Can’t there at least be a semblance of a story?

The director held a Q&A afterwards. He was wearing a scarf indoors. Groan. Though if I understood what was said correctly afterwards, various guest-workers and typical locations were used in the film (rather than being shot in, say, Mosfilm Studios). Too bad the production didn’t bother to delve into the topic further, as I mentioned in previous posts that Slavic (or “White”) Russians don’t exactly have good attitudes towards the Southern Caucasians or their Asian neighbours.

Неглубокая могила/Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994)

Before Trainspotting, Danny Boyle shot Shallow Grave. I got slight waves of nostalgia, as it was filmed in Edinburgh, plus there was a cèilidh scene (Scottish line dancing, essentially, except fun).

One of the three protagonists, Kerry Fox (who plays a doctor), was in town to present the movie. Ewan McGregor (an obnoxious journo who never shuts up) and Christopher Eccleston (a straight-laced accountant who “always gets the job done”) have since gone on to bigger things.

It’s a well-paced flick, and Eccleston does a wonderful job of making the rest of the cast feel paranoid as he becomes more and more unstable after new flatmate Keith Allen’s unexpected death by overdose in their apartment. Well worth watching.

Гоп-стоп/Hold Up (Pavel Bardin, 2010)

Before Гоп-стоп (Gop-Stop), Pavel Bardin shot the film “Russia 88” (2009), which was a fake documentary about Russian neo-Nazi skinheads. I’ve not seen it myself, but it was both fairly well-received and banned from being screened in Russia.

Hold Up isn’t exactly a good translation of the title. The word “gopnik” in the blog title is Russia’s word for someone of the lower class i.e. ned, spide, steek, towny or scally depending on where you’re from in the UK. Essentially the stereotypical image of individuals dressed in garish tracksuits who hang around in playgrounds drinking Buckfast or White Lightning.

Ironically, while Gop-Stop features aforesaid scummy gopniks as the lead characters, the tone is the polar opposite to Bardin’s previous flick. Even though the film is loaded with obscure cultural references, most of which I could barely understand, I still found it hilarious. Needless to say, the locals who were in attendance howled with laughter.

Gop-Stop is the tale of down-and-out gopnik Vasya, played by Pyotr Fyodorov (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Colin Farrell) and his close friend who embark on an absurd Robin Hood-esque scheme against the oppressive local mayor, who has spent most of his term embezzling the money of the taxpayers. I wonder where they got that idea from?

Sometimes the Russian definition of comedy tends to be a guy on stage holding a clipboard, who announces “Two Russians go to Las Vegas” and then reads out a list of the hijinx they get up to. Gop-Stop completely quashes that image, proving that writers here are equally capable of dumb-but-fun screenplays that need not really on one nationality as its audience to be successful. Russian slapstick is not high art by any means, but it sure as hell was infinitely more entertaining than Another Sky.

Bizarrely, on the night, the film was being screened twice. After we came out of the hall, it turned out the second showing was for cast, crew and guests only. It was slightly bizarre seeing the same people that I had just watched for the past hour and a half standing in front of me. Pyotr Fyodorov remained in character and was dressed up in an ugly tracksuit for the premiere.

Социа́льная Сеть/The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)

This wasn’t part of the festival, though it has just been released in Russia. It might be a bit of a stretch to define it as “the film of the decade” that some reviewers have already said, but the combination of Fincher’s direction, Aaron Sorkin’s writing, and the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made for a fantastic experience.

It should be noted that, while it’s been called “the Facebook movie”, it has very little to do with the website itself. Instead, the story (based on the mouthful of a book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal”) focuses on the actions of the main players – how the site was spawned from Mark Zuckerberg being dumped and drunkenly taking out his frustrations through his skills as a programmer – and the sacrifices they have made along the way in pursuit of fortune.

Regrettably I had the misfortune of only getting to see the Russian dub, but I still walked out of the cinema satisfied. Reznor’s style shines throughout, especially when the second major scene hits.

And who would have thought Justin Timberlake would nearly steal the show with his sleazy, narcissistic portrayal of Sean Parker, one of the founders of peer-to-peer file sharing service Napster?

The overall moral of the story is, while the facts might likely have been skewed and overdramatized on the way to the projector, we are all human and are equally fragile. It’s not exactly a feel-good movie, but in spite of the success of Zuckerberg et al., they all get their comeuppance one way or another, be it being sued for 500 million dollars, or simply being dumped by your girlfriend for being a jerk.

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Last night on the way back from work one man was walking around in the chilly autumn air topless very slowly, albeit with his coat hanging down around his elbows. Later, on the way to the local grocery store, there was a man sliding around on his arse for no apparent reason. He didn’t look crippled at all; something had just possessed him to propel himself across the asphalt with his hands. Seat of trousers be damned.

That’s it for now.

The Dethroning of Luzhkov

In the twelve or so years I spent studying Russian, as well as going to and from Moscow, there was always one constant: Yury Luzhkov. For the past eighteen years Luzhkov was the mayor of Moscow. But earlier this week, during Dmitry Medvedev's trip to China to rub shoulders with potential Hu Jintao replacements, the head of state held a press conference, during which he told the media that he had just signed a decree removing Luzhkov from office over "loss of confidence". He added that, as head of state, he cannot work with a regional head he does not trust. Michele Berdy has an interesting insight into the affair in her column on translating Russian over at the Moscow Times concerning Medvedev's choice of words.

Luzhkov is not a popular man, especially among the gay community, whom he has repeatedly condemned for their so-called satanic activities and happily dispatched the police to knock the shit out of them every time they tried to hold an "unsanctioned" demonstration anywhere in the city, though specifically on Triumfalnaya Square, where one can find the statue of renowned poet Mayakovsky...


...but it wasn't always this way with Luzhkov. He did do a lot for the capital. After the USSR went belly up in the 90s, Moscow was in chaos, and Luzhkov's indefatigable management skills came to the fore and managed to turn the place from potentially becoming a swamp to one of the most opulent capitals on the planet.

Urban regeneration was his forte, and for the first few years he pulled it off. In the vid up top you'll see the big gold Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Храм Христа Спасителя Khram Khree-sta Spa-see-tell-ya). The colossal structure was reconstructed under his watch (it got torn down in the 1930s). He had restored the city, and then some.

...But then things started to go wrong (well, not really for Luzhkov). Luzhkov slowly shifted from being a manager to a political figure, not to mention the sums of money that were being accumulated from the massive construction projects.

Of course, people in office in Russia aren't permitted to have any financial interests, but it would have been a terrible shame to let all those business contacts go to waste. That's where Luzkhov's wife came in.

Unlike her spouse, Yelena Baturina has no such problem with trivial issues like political accountability. Although it's never been declared officially, it's fair to assume that her construction firm wouldn't have been behind so many of Moscow's many sky-scraping eyesores had it not been for her proximity to the highest executive power in Moscow.

Speaking of eyesores, Luzhkov is also partly responsible for the most obnoxious statue in Moscow.

This 90-meter-tall behemoth is meant to be in memory of Peter the Great, and was constructed by the equally obnoxious "artist" Zurab Tsereteli, who just happens to be (surprise surprise) a close friend of Luzhkov. I think we're a seeing a pattern emerging.

Regardless of the slightly undemocratic deposition, it was more than ample time for him to be booted out. His stay in the mayor's office was way past any acceptable term, though I suspect Michael Bloomberg may have been taking notes.

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In other news, I've been lax in visiting the gym, mostly due to laziness combined with the fact that I have achieved more or less what I set out to do. Honestly speaking, the place is pretty lame and the membership is running out soon. The fact that there are so many men doing those previously-mentioned thrusting motions in tight shorts (on more than one occasion I've even seen punters do some form of bizarre tapdance as a warm up) in front of me while I'm on the treadmill makes me feel I've wandered onto the set of a really crap gay softcore porno-comedy. The receptionist is cute, though.

I believe there's a nicer (read: more expensive) gym up the road.

[Husband & wife pic by Misha Japaridze/Associated Press, found in this Guardian article, the rest are mine :P]

On the Seventh Day of January, My True Love Sent to Me...

...Bugger all to do, because the first week of January in Russia is their official Christmas, according to the Orthodox Calendar. I won't go into detail about Russian celebrations, safe to say that their 'Christmas' (i.e. all the gift-giving and celebrating on December 25th) falls on New Year's Eve due to the godless regime of the communists quashing anything to do with religion. I also won't touch on the Orthodox Church in Russia, other than the fact its rapid re-emergence since the 1990s has left NO separation between church and state in this country.

What I have been up to since my last post hasn't been that action-filled, but because it's the first week of January and that the whole country is officially comatose, I no longer have any excuse not to write something about last month. My months of being stingy have finally enabled me to waste it in more sensible ways - most prominent of which was a short trip to Shanghai.

Given the fact that a Belgian friend of mine was extremely kind enough to host me in the spare room of her gorgeous Shanghai flat, and the fact that Aeroflot (Russia's national airline) were doing deals at the time of purchase (approx 16,000 roubles round trip, or £320), meant that there was little reason not to get the hell out of Moscow for once.

Unfortunately, I have to confess that I'm one of the worst tourists in the world. I didn't take a single photo, mostly due to the fact that I don't have a digital camera (the one on my Nokia does not count), but I didn't really need to. It wasn't one of those "I need to embrace the local culture in full" type of trips. I just came to hang out, to see what life is like for my Belgian friend and her expatriate acquaintances there, to eat some weird vegetables that look like they are from outer space, to watch my friend argue with souvenir sellers, to shake my butt in extremely pretentious and overpriced nightclubs that have shark tanks by the dance floor located in skyscrapers, and to attend a party held by the local Russian community, only to pointlessly win a subscription to the local community rag in the lottery at the aforesaid party. All of these instances are short stories in themselves, and it would not be fair to cut them short in this entry.

Chiefly what I gathered there is that, much like Moscow isn't Russia, Shanghai isn't China. Oh sure there are Chinese people living there, and they all speak Chinese, but it's very Westernized, a bit of a concrete jungle in the center, but, at least to me, rather comfortable. Even though there are about 20 million people in Shanghai (roughly 5 million more than Moscow, officially), it didn't feel cramped in the slightest. Maybe something to do with the fact that I was on average about a foot taller than everyone else.

Moscow, on the contrary, especially with its winter workday commute on the metro, can be stressful for those who have not yet lost that part of their soul. Shanghai is clean, the locals don't scowl, and the living costs for foreigners are minuscule. Yes, they spit in the streets, but I'll take that over the foul Russian habit of clearing one's nose (Step 1: close one nostril. Step 2: blow out the other. Step 3: repeat with the other. Try to do it in a crowded area as possible for maximum revulsion) any day.

And yes, there are bicycles. Everywhere. Even my Belgian friend has one. Those songs you've heard about the Chinese and bicycles, they're all true. Just bicycles and taxis. The rest of the world should take note, rather than demonizing the Chinese for its sizable contribution to industrial pollution.

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In other news, Mayor Yury Luzhkov's bullshit snow prevention plan has fallen on its arse. Someone sensible in the Russian Air Force (VVS - Voyenno-vozdushnye sily Rossii lit. Military-aerial strength of Russia) has said that they need two weeks notice before they do any cloud seeding. It doesn't really matter now, as Europe appears to have stolen this year's quota. That's not to say it isn't cold. It's very cold. The day I left for Shanghai it plummeted to -27ºC. It currently hovers around the -15 mark, which is just about the temperature where your nasal hairs start to freeze whenever you inhale.