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mushoodsheikh1985
Reviews
Mayor (2013)
Not your typical police corruption movie...
Major Sergey Sobolov gets a phonecall informing him that his wife has gone into labour...in a rush driving too fast he accidentally kills a seven year old boy right in front of the child's mother...his natural reaction is to cover up the incident...and from there on chaos ensues...the real problems with the cover up occur when Sobolev's guilty conscience catches up with him...
This isn't your typical police corruption story...there are no one dimensional characters and a lot of moral questions are raised throughout the film...nothing is black and white...during one part of the film the following question is asked: 'would you report your husband if he ran over a child'...and one has to ask whether the police protecting their own is any different from the rest of us...
Denis Svedov as Sergey delivers a powerful performance as does Irina Nizina as Irina, the boys mother...Yuri Bykov who also directs the film is excellent as Pasha...
This film could have presented a simple good vs bad guy scenario and i'm glad it didn't...everyone is all too human but find themselves doing inhumane things in a difficult situation...how far would you go to save others and yourself?...and what can you live with?...
Dolgaya schastlivaya zhizn (2013)
When revolutions fail
Sasha has left the city and moved to a rural village where he has bought up a farm...it isn't productive and the state decides it wants to buy up the land and they have offered Sasha a substantial compensation package if he signs over the farm...
What ensues is fascinating...his workers refuse to give up the land without a fight and touched by their strength Sasha decides to stand alongside them and fight and give up his compensation and risk losing his beautiful girlfriend...
We see this revolution fall apart as tough talk doesn't turn into tough action...some may support an idea but have no desire to sacrifice for it...and those who have sacrificed the most need to see something through so that their efforts haven't been in vain...the theme of betrayal and sacrifice reign large in this movie...
Another outstanding Russian flick that makes one think...especially considering some of the conflicts we have seen lately...