Solidrariol
Am I Missing Something?
Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
SeanBatemanJr
"Cargo 200" is my favorite Balabanov's film. By showing and perhaps exaggerating a lot of elements director has personally seen in eighties USSR he has created a very successful metaphorical movie. Most obviously it's of a metaphor for decline of USSR, but even shocking parallels with very recent crimes of Russian policemen the year "Cargo 200" came out had shown that the metaphor is much broader. It is also to a large extent about modern Russia and perhaps even people and society in general. The genre is mixed, taking horror to the extreme and mixing contrasting details of an era creates an absurdist Pyton-esque humor in a lot of scenes at least for those who can understand it (a lot of Russian viewers and critics didn't get this type of humor, which is much more prevalent in western culture today, popularized by the likes of South Park, more familiar to younger "global Russians"). A lot in this movie from transgressive story to political and historical elements is very provocative and makes it hard for a lot of people to see the movie itself behind all the provocative elements and all the emotional buttons it pushes. Even in comments on IMDb you can see of strong, sometimes outraged, reactions to this movie and they are 10 times stronger in Russia where history is a much more touchy subject, there are more taboos, at least in media, and the view of cinema and humor is generally more conservative.I personally won't necessarily call it a realist movie, it is a metaphor first and foremost. But a lot of details of the era are very precise - the music, the gorgeously decayed and familiar (if you have lived in Russia) set designs are a pleasure, albeit maybe a perverse one, to observe in this film. All in all, a lot in "Cargo 200" just works. It was conceived and developed in the right place at the right time, a lot of elements of the movie and historical artifacts and collective memories that inspired it just came together very effectively. Seems like this movie wanted to be created and found a great creator in the late great Aleksey Balabanov, becoming one of his strongest works.
runamokprods
Unique, deeply disturbing combination of 'Last House on the Left' type horror, pitch-black political satire, and fury at the sickness of one's own society. The film was said by it's director to have been explicitly made to combat the growing nostalgia, fueled by Putin, for Soviet era Russia. Based on true events that occurred in 1984, as the Soviet Union sank ever deeper into the Afghanistan quagmire ('Cargo 200' is the code names for bodies being brought back from the war), this depiction of a 'Deliverance' type grotesque family who sell illegal booze to finance their fantasy of one day creating a utopia in the middle of nowhere, and the complete psychopath of a police captain 'friend' who protects, but ultimately turns on them, and ends up committing murder, along with rape, torture and kidnapping of a young girl who happens by – all while being paid by the government. The slow build is handled pretty brilliantly, and we're surprised over and over at exactly who turns out to do what – although the feeling of doom hovers over the film from it's first moments. By the end of the film, the depravity is so insane, and depicted in such a matter- of-fact way, that the only reaction one can have is to laugh a terribly disturbed, uncomfortable laugh. It's as if Balabanov took torture porn, but turned it into the darkest possible comedy performance-art by having it comment on the world in a bigger way (but isn't that really what all the truly great horror films do?) The cinematography is also 'beautiful' in its almost loving framing of ugliness, both human and industrial.Major plot questions are left unanswered, but that doesn't feel like sloppy film-making, but rather an intentional (if frustrating) method of making us ponder what we've just witnessed, instead of being able to walk away and forget. Some of the acting is awkward, but there are images I that will stick with me a long time, and I have the feeling the film might grow even deeper on repeated viewings. It isn't often you read various critics comparing a film to both the Coen bothers and 'Saw', or a critic saying 'it made me want to puke, and I mean that as a high complement', but it's that much a one-of- a-kind film.
padimore99
After watching the film to the end, i launched myself off the chair, toward the television and returned to the beginning - so i could reassure myself that the word 'based on true events' had been written there. He (Alexey balbanov) may have been messing with us or not, but then the complete repulsiveness and disbelief at the fact that human beings are capable of such things, was the most riveting thing. The film and characters deliver a slice of outright realism, social decay, dark and twisted tales i have ever seen. And nowadays in times unsurprising storytelling, this film shocked the hell out of me. It wasn't the disgust of Captain Zhurov nor the helplessness of Angelika (my name-sake) that irritated me, but the sheer intertwining and coincidence that could be experienced in the film. Everyone crossed everyone else's path. This, like others have said, is a very very dark, sick, twisted movie... in a good way. That it keeps you interested and intrigued. I loved it, only with an open mind.
Peter 26
It's a horror film about maniac with details of his crimes. It's not about the USSR and it's not a historical movie. The director pretends on a great depth of meaning but really it's horror in "social realism" style. If you never live in the USSR in 80th you can think that the whole life was the same like in this movie. I.e. maniacs, criminals integrated in the police and in the society. But reality differs from this like Charles Manson differs from usual man. Balabanov is a good provoker. He wanted sensation at any cost and he received it with naturalistic acts of violence and with decomposing men bodies. It's a very cheap way but if you haven't talent and ideas just remake "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in another surrounding and call it drama instead of horror and voilà - you are modern fancy new wave director!
