Lee Eisenberg Georgiy Danelia's "Kin-dza-dza!" is part science fiction, part comedy, part social satire. When a pair of passers-by touch a strange object held by a man on a street in Moscow, they find themselves standing on a desert planet in another galaxy. It's a stratified society, a bit like what the Mad Max movies depict. The human-looking inhabitants have their own slang, their own clothes, and their own technology. But there's a lot in store.It's one of the more bizarre movies out there. When you look at what it depicts, it's clear that this sort of movie could have only gotten released under Gorbachev, when the Soviet Union finally started owning up to its mistakes. In general I interpret it as having the same basic gist of some of Terry Gilliam's movies: a look at the desire to escape from our modern world (depicted in "Time Bandits" and "Brazil").Worth seeing.

Klaus Ming USSR 135m, Colour Director: Georgiy Daneliya; Cast: Stanislav Lyubshin, Yevgeni Leonov, Yury Yakovlev, Levan GabriadzeKin-dza-dza! is a brilliantly bizarre dystopian science fiction movie set in the Kin-dza-dza galaxy on the planet Plyuk which is near devoid of its natural resources, and where social status is based on the colour of your pants. Essentially a buddy movie, Mashkov and Gedevan are two unsuspecting Russian citizens who are accidentally transported to Plyuk where they are befriended by a pair of capitalistic, nose-bell trading, telepathic entertainers who want nothing more than the box of matches that Mashkov has in his pocket. As outsiders, they must adopt the galaxy's hilariously strange customs if they hope to find a way back to earth in this superbly conceived, darkly humorous, and thoughtful social satire (Klaus Ming June 2013).

chaos-rampant Vladimir Nikolaevich and Skripach are two Earthlings who inexplicably find themselves transported to an alien planet, a vast post-apocalyptic desert, populated by greasy caricatures of people speaking an autistic, monosyllabic language, and strewn with an assortment of peculiar buildings of all shapes and sizes.If there's one thing you can't take away from KIN DZA DZA is that it is imaginative and to an extent a pleasantly absurd sci-fi adventure romp. It is mostly light-hearted fare but not, as it appears, with something of a cerebral nature hiding behind the surface. There is a passing mention on racism and equality but it's never too serious. Where it faulters is in assuming a succession of encounters with cartoonish characters and visits in cartoonish places is enough to sustain its 126 minute length.The best parts of the movie are easily the location work and the set-design. While the camera-work leaves a lot to be desired, the desert landscapes carry with them an air of natural awe. Some of the truly fantastic set-pieces construced include a ferris-wheel in the middle of the desert surrounded by old cabins, a gigantic balloon, a toilet-cum-escape-pod and a weird underground complex where hundreds of people slave away on some kind of labour.The inhabitants of this alien planet speak in a weird language. Every minute someone's saying "Koo!" to someone else, "koo" substituting for almost every word. They call matches "Ketse", their cylindrical spaceships that looks like cans of beans "Pepelats". There are also different races on this planet, the "Chatlans" and the "Patsak" chief among them. This kind of baboonish banter however soon outstays its welcome and becomes a major annoyance. Also, "We don't need Skripanch" seems to be a running joke similar to THE BIG LEBOWSKI's "Shut up Donnie!".Take away however all the little gimmicks KIN DZA DZA consists of and there's no story left to hold it together. The two earthlings simply wander from one place to the next trying to return home, stopping occasionally to sing inside a wooden cage. That's it. A bunch of weird ideas, locations and characters strung together to no purpose. Is it simply a pastiche? An allegory to something? A ready-made cult curio? You be the judge.

maha-online It is an outstanding movie! In order to really appreciate it, I had to see it twice. One of the themes is the Soviet Perestroika, but a lot of other themes are treated: friendship, social & cultural rituals, racism, bureaucracy, communication and many others. Moreover, the film is very sound from a Sci-Fi perspective: The machines look a bit old-fashioned, but there is nothing that isn't convincing. The behavior of the aliens seems to be odd at first sight, but after some time (and esp. if you watch the film more than once) it has a certain logic. The dialogs are very funny. The Moscovites' strategies how to tackle with the aliens and their culture are quite interesting.