hte-trasme I found this film after I had read and enjoyed a novel by Vladimir Sorokin, the scenarist of "4." What I got was an interesting and certainly memorable sight, if not necessarily easy to process or digest all at once. It's almost possible to see (or, perhaps, imagine) where part of them film is drawn from the literary milieu of the novelist Sorokin, and where it leaves that real of the power of words and moves into an area where arresting cinematic images are the order of the day. There is a an excellent basic premise for a film here, and one that could go any number of ways -- three lonely people are a bartender meet late at night in a bar; the patrons order drinks and begin to tell stories about their lives that seem to be completely fabricated. And then they start to doubt each other's stories. This part of the film is precisely paced and acted, heavily atmospheric, and very tightly and fascinatingly written, with sparking dialog. After this section, though. The tone shifts dramatically, and we follow the three protagonists home to different lives that are shown in a slow-paced way with many quiet shots that linger on disparate details. Most dramatic seems to be the life of the rough-dealing meat salesman who comes home to a melancholy, overly-meticulous, father petrified of germs. But we follow the call-girl mostly, and the film dwells on the squalor of her setting as she takes the train to small village to attend the funeral of a girl who led the making of bread-chewed dolls to sell. The following images of massed geriatric and bread=chewing and pig- eating are very striking and maybe deliberately unpleasant. And to be perfectly frank, the digression that the film leaves its opening scenes for is just less interesting. As it stands, this film contains both strikingly committed surrealism and outré imagery in its later two fourths, and mysterious, deftly written drama around themes like the superficiality of the knowledge we have of the world around us and the need to sensationalize our lives for others in the first quarter. I can't help but feel like I'd had been more satisfied if it had continued in its first vein.

buonanotte I must say that the opening sequence is just stunning and brings you in a visually outstanding atmosphere. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the quality of the surface is not completely reflected on the inside.Characters are well played but I wish they had something more interesting to talk about. The dialogues are probably just what they are meant to be: excuses to chat up someone in a bar and give your opinion about what's going on in your country... The film moves from the city and its stories, to the outskirts and its rumours. Alcohol, boredom and desperation find always a way to be present. This movie is a bit like "City of god", without the effort of a positive story-line. What I've seen so far seems a fake (and gloriously good-looking) scoop on modern Russia. I think that the photography and the sound-design deserve a special mention. I also notice a fine creativity in some concepts (dogs biting dolls) but I still feel the lack of something.I think that 6/10 is well deserved because the movie is well crafted but I definitely hope that Khrzhanovsky's next one will be better.

nycritic I'm starting to think that there's a conspiracy, all right: one that involves a wallop of money paid to those who have access to published columns in newspapers and film and art magazines to ensure that this or that film, despite its obscurity, will reach a higher status via a ratings point which will tag it with a "universal acclaim" or something within that range, thus ensuring unsuspecting folk (like me) will wander into theatres or rent the bloody thing, expecting a surprise, only to find myself racing to the bathroom to upchuck.This movie is one of them. It has definitely make me bypass any and every posted article I come across because it's rather clear that two things might have happened: either I didn't get the message that is so hidden beneath this film's inner realms as to be impossible to access, or they and I watched two entirely different movies that happen to share the same name. 4 is a dirty trick on the audience. It's no wonder that it appeared and disappeared faster than you can say "smorsgabord" and that despite the rating it got on Metacritic, no one had heard of it. It's terrible with sugar on top.Firstly, there is the ever-present number four from start to finish. While having a little symbolism here and there is okay, and it's been done with various degrees of success in many well-known movies, this movie is panting with it. Four dogs at the start of the movie, looking at the camera in a heretofore empty street when suddenly, machinery drops onto the foreground and proceeds to rip open the asphalt. Four people in a bar, although one of them is a non-entity. Three of them go their separate ways but are linked nevertheless, not only to each other but to what their lives are not. While this concept may work, the movie meanders so much -- particularly with the story of the would-be model played by Marina Vovchenko which goes into the territory of the extremely bizarre, and not in a good way -- that the initial theme gets lost in translation. Or maybe, like I said before, I just "didn't get it." The problem also lies in that so much time is spent on Marina's story (which revolves on the death of her sister, from bread-chewing, no less, and the subsequent, shrill mourning which follows) that any interest in the inherent Surrealism dissipates without a trace. So what if the same horrifying tales that the three strangers interchanged in a bar seem to have a truth of their own? The director doesn't invest much time in truly tying them together, or weaving a tighter story that could, in a David Lynchian way, intersect either with the past-present, or within alternate dimensions, or even as a straightforward, mundane science-fiction story. This is an uphill battle against an insurmountable wall that only a saint (or someone into the weird for weird's sake) could endure.

acid_grinder An extraordinary work that was written by an amazing Russian writer, Vladimir Sorokin, and directed by a young talented Russian director, Ilya Khrzhanovsky. This film is a real trip that starts of with being a funny story, but by the time it ends, leave the viewer shocked among the other feelings! The great directing and sound directing creates an astonishing atmosphere and visual beauty thought the whole film, making it a very "acid" experience. These combined with Sorokins madness, creates a real different trip, for the people who likes good/surreal/different cinema as much as I do. I watched this film many times, but i still didn't get enough. I hope non Russian speakers will enjoy it, and understand the symbolism of some things in it...the dogs, the tractors.....I rated it 10, and for me it is the best Russian film since quiet a while...Check it out, you wont regret!!!