I didn't have a chance to see the ending, the last 30 minutes. The last thing I saw was when dogs ate all the dolls (the last 4 dolls!).What happened to Volodya and Oleg? Why was Volodya arrested? Did Marina leave the village?
Why were there so many dogs in the movie?
I would appreciate if someone could answer me.
What were your impressions of this movie? Any interpretations? I found it very disturbing.
Thanks.
Honestly, none of these get answered imo.
shareMORE SPOILERS
it kind of bothered me that in the middle there was mainly a focus on Marinka and the story of oleg and volodya got diminished a bit. anyway i really like the open ending. i think Marinka will eventually leave for sure, and so will her sisters, after all, there's nothing left as income now she burned all the dolls so why stay?
as for oleg, he keeps being the jerk and liar he is. the irony is, that when he defends a dog from being kicked "why you do that?" "dogs are a man's best friend" oleg replies, he crashes due to avoiding hitting a dog with his car...
on volodya, i like it that it is not clear what he's arrested for, and it doesn't really matter. i think it's just to show the russian idea of 'justice' and 'fair trials' are much much different (or should i say 'indifferent') compared to how we understand it. in a lot of unsolved cases, it doesn't matter if you're guilty or not,if you're *beep* out of luck you're going down anyway. the reason he doesn't really fights to prove his innocence (though we can't be sure about that either) i think he is at a stage in his life where he feels lost and/or useless, hence the making up of the story in the beginning. i get that from the fact that it doesn't seem to be improvised at all. of neither of the 3. they're stories they tell to either make their life seem more interesting or hiding what they really do for a living. 4 people (you should count the bartender as well) who are not really pleased with the lifes they lead at that point...
i think it's a very realistic and existentialistic movie that fits too many parts of the russian countries where life seems all too pointless.
about the dogs: it can be interpreted in many ways i think. there are 4 ways shown how dogs can be seen as a part of man's life: maybe dogs are one of the only things people in such areas can still kind of relate to
1. being 'man's best friends' on one hand (for when the human contact seems too cold and meaningless - eg the bum at the end)
2. a way to vent their anger on cuz they're unworthy creatures anyway in some eyes, venting on humans is after all punishable...
3. others use dogs as a way of controling others (guards vs prisoners)
4. while sometimes dogs can be caring for humans who treated them right and avenge them -> dogs eating the dolls that Zoja was kind of forced to make for the old ladies which drove her to her death (in some way)...
hope this could help
grtz
"Power to the people who punish bad cinema!!" - Cecil B. Demented for president!!
I'm not agreeing with you or disagreeing because I can't speak honestly about a real Russian's opinion of life, but if Russians are generally unhappy with life and see it as pointless, as illustrated by the movie, then what makes you think that Marinka and her sisters would leave the house whether there was income or not? If Russians' lives are accurately represented by this movie, then perhaps Marinka and her sisters would stay at the house and wither away, in my opinion, perhaps just as a dramatic example of symbolism.
shareThe dogs in the film represent the OLd Russian soul and reffering to grandmas.While the excovators and buldosers represents the New Russian souls, Marinas and the rest.
shareOk, first I'll say what I noticed about the dogs and then I'll talk about what I thought when I finished watching the movie.
We see Marina and Oleg defending dogs: Marina is upset that a dog was ran over on the street and Oleg got mad at the guy that kicked the dog.
However, we later see the dogs screwing things over: in Marina's story, the dogs eat the faces of the dolls, and in Oleg's story, one of them gets in his way and makes him crash.
They keep saying good things about dogs, yet we never see a dog doing something good in the movie.
When I finished watching the movie I stopped and said "I didn't understand anything..."
So, what I got from this movie (whether it was the filmmaker's intention or not), is that you can't really understand someone by just seeing a little part of their lives (like in citizen Kane, when they were trying to understand someone's life by the last word he uttered before dying). It seems we all got used to Hollywood giving us closure, but in this film, we don't get it: we don't know anything from any of the character's pasts and we don't know what happens to them afterwards.
Why was Marina angry at her sister? We get little hints, but not much.
Was Volodya really guilty of the crime? Or was it a case of mistaken identity?
Did Oleg survive the crash or not?
The one time they had the chance to tell their stories, they lied and invented something else. There are things that we'll just never know.
volodya is arrested for killing Zoyla who we find out is Marina's sister who she goes back to attend the funeral for - she doesn't live there anymore she lives in the city where she got the message on her answering machine. The last we see of the third guy is him on the phone in the car her swerves to miss a dog and crashes his car - it is unclear if he is dead or not but we do see a thief take his watch
shareFireworks, Zoya died because she choked to death when chewing bread and being slightly drunk
shareI thought he was arrested for killing Zoya too. From memory the name and the photo of the supposed victim, and of Zoya, were the same, or at least very similar.
True, there was a big argument about how Zoya choked on bread, but I got the impression her death was unresolved. Just like we don't know whether he actually killed anyone.
He's probably dead. You don't see any movement or hear any sound, and you do see a lot of blood. And if he's alive, it doesn't look like he's gonna to be helped soon.
shareZelda, Volodya was arrested for a crime commited by someone who, according to the crime witness, looked exactly like Volodya. May be the crime was committed by Volodya's clone...
shareThe movie is full of intentional contradiction - like Marina's train visit where the same conversation is duplicated but with different people saying it. Or Oleg first saying he doesn't deal in ground meat but then selling it on the phone at the end. Maybe - and this might be a stretch - in the same way the 3 main characters all lie about their lives at the bar the truth is even their realities are inconsistent.
shareInteresting point volanj. Notice when Volodya goes to the club everybody on the dance floor is a twin.
And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo...
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