Parnikovyy effekt (2005) Reviews

• A rewarding coming-of-age drama from Russia

  jpmccusa-12006-03-24

  This quirky drama from Russia has a lot to offer, though its oddness makes it hard to determine exactly what its target audience might have been. Rita is a naïve 18-year-old from the sticks who has come to Moscow to meet up with the man who impregnated her a few months earlier. Unfortunately, his name and address was written on a piece of paper in her luggage, which was promptly stolen upon her arrival in Moscow. Thus, she is a bit at loose ends, and going back home is clearly not an option. She is befriended by street-kid Ernest ("Nemoy" in the credits), whose nickname of "Mute" comes from his way of making a living---wandering around the city wearing a cardboard placard proclaiming his (nonexistent) disability while looking for handouts. This irrepressible kid of 14 or so lives on his own in a greenhouse (hence the English title for the film: "The Greenhouse Effect"). He is saving up so that he and an older friend "Greek" can go live with the latter's grandparents in Greece. Most of the film concerns the various adventures of Rita and Ernest as they fashion a day-to-day living on the margins of society. It isn't easy, but Ernest's good-hearted optimism makes every mundane event seem a minor adventure. The camera work in the film is often distinctive, as we see many scenes of modern Moscow as the life of the city goes on around the pair, with no apparent trickle-down effect to give us hope that their lives might come to have some hope or meaning. As events play themselves out, not a lot changes for the better, though hope remains. One is tempted to look for some sort of message in a film like this, and, to be fair, it's kind of hard to find one. The best I can come up with is that the film shows quite clearly that teenagers are probably somewhat more likely to progress into a rewarding and viable adulthood if they are under the care and influence of warm, responsible, and loving adults. Since there are almost none of these sorts of people to be found in the film, the point should be clear.

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• loved these unlikeable characters...

  fnorful2006-04-04

  ...one of whom is a hustler and a thief, the other is a young confused liar and ingrate. But I still came to like them. The excellent acting by the two young protagonists is compelling and very believable. Rita and Nemoy take us on their journey of taking each day as it comes, of searching for the past and perhaps building for a future. The plot fills in nicely while the camera work often forces us to realize that these two characters hardly matter in the big scheme of things, that the traffic and the hubbub of daily life are the big players while these small folks (and the rest of most of us) perform their small actions in near anonymity. Moscow is a good backdrop for this juxtaposition, literally and historically. A good, believable watch with a slightly ambiguous, mostly Indie ending; worth a watch.

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