CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

timbirchard Extra warning: absolutely contains spoilers.I've only watched once (so far), and I'll admit that it took some serious concentration to follow. And I'm not without questions.But.For all the reviewers who said that it was simply a bunch of unrelated, disconnected short stories about violence, you didn't watch carefully enough. There IS a main character. The scenes support the story of this main character throughout the whole movie (only if you WATCH the whole thing, of course), all the way to the end.Our truck driving friend gives a lift to some random old man... a man who has lost his name (and his bride) in the war. We see the old man's story. And our truck driving friend has no idea that he will become just like this old man.Our truck driving friend runs out of diesel and ends up getting set upon by three men who are desperate... one of whom is mute. Our truck driving friend has no idea that he will become just like this man who is mute.And, contrary to one reviewer's perception that this all happens 'in a few days', we see a sudden shift from summer or fall to winter. It's our truck driving friend who is lying there in the woman's house, unmoving. It is he whom she takes advantage of physically, while he's unconscious.It is he who becomes imprisoned. He who stumbles out of prison when another inmate breaks out.He who waits by the side of the highway, finally to be picked up by a very talkative driver. And he who snaps at the end.I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started watching this movie. After one viewing, I'm looking forward to owning it and delving deep into its layers, unraveling it as best I can to learn more and to answer some of the questions I still have: what was the time period of the teacher and his young son? And is the son, orphaned and left sitting on the bench at his house, also the same old man who saves our truck driving friend from freezing by taking him home on his horse-drawn sleigh? I have no problem with not having all of the answers at the end of my watch. A movie of this magnitude is certainly worth repeated viewings. If you feel the same way, I recommend this movie to you.

simonlmumford Three main issues = (1) Incredibly irritating to follow unless you know beforehand that the movie is composed of a series of short stories from different time periods. What adds to this problem is that the characters are mostly rough looking bearded Russians sometimes shot in dim light, therefore, it's hard to tell when a new character is being introduced or if it's the same rough looking bearded Russian as before. (2) The short stories themselves aren't really stories but a series of violent occurrences. (3) Since the film is not plot driven it must be making some type of statement or social commentary; unfortunately, that statements been made many times before in better fashion.

mehmet_kurtkaya This film opens with a compelling scene involving a trucker in the countryside. It then follows on with the camera placed in front of the truck picking snapshots of people and their daily struggles along the road. More importantly we see a population subsisting in moral darkness. There is even a scene or two reminiscent of a Haneke wannabe.Unfortunately the director plunges in this moral darkness he himself has created by revisiting history. When the film comes back to present day it falters and when it does that a second time in the rural home of a teacher it never comes back. The film loses any direction and becomes a collage of arbitrary violence. And most unfortunately this part is way longer then the rest of the movie! The director who apparently aims to lay the blame of current Ukrainian problems into Soviet era does not even stop short of a Nazi praise in the character of a teacher who blatantly hints God loving Nazis could have created a better Ukraine. This is where the film will find its place in history as a showcase of the rise of the extreme right in Europe! This is where free speech cunningly turns into hate speech and the propaganda goes totally out of control.Mind blowing for sure if that was the intention of the director! This film can be watched as a case study.

magus-9 Certainly one of the best films of the year, MY JOY depicts the journey of a truck driver through contemporary Russia. The journey is full of detours, some of which take in scenes from the past, from 60 years or so ago, in the time of World War Two. In beautiful, lyrical mise-en-scene, the director shows scenes of brutality, rudeness, corruption and violence; this is a poetical portrayal of ugliness... Whether it is intended as a depiction of the brutality of conditions in contemporary Russia, or whether it is intended more as a general portrait of the human condition is not entirely clear to me, but, whatever it is, this is strong, haunting film-making, skillfully depicting a disjointed world of violence and degradation.