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| Images courtesy of InterCinema |
Late renowned Russian director Aleksei Balabanov was well
into his filmography as a household name in modern cinema, having established
himself as a grand master of the crime subgenre with the Brother films
and the dark comedy crime epic Dead Man’s Bluff. Having immortalized lead actor Sergei Bodrov
Jr. on film in the Brother series as well as giving Nikita Mikhalkov
arguably his best work in years, Balabanov proved he could attract and build
star talent while creating a viable box office money printer with his still
popular and celebrated oeuvre. But
around 2007 Balabanov created and unveiled his most polarizing and blistering
masterwork in a film that burned many bridges for its then-illustrious director
on the way to the silver screen: the sardonic-absurdist and deeply disturbing
crime drama Cargo 200.
Deriving the title from the Soviet military code word
referring to the transportation of military fatalities in zinc-lined coffins
which itself became something of a euphemism for mass losses of life in combat
arising around the Soviet-Afghan War in the mid-1980s, Cargo 200 is
maybe the closest thing the Russian Federation has to its very own A
Clockwork Orange. A whirlwind of
extremism including but not limited to rape, graphic violence and an
underhanded hint of the patently absurd, Balabanov’s ensemble piece proved to
be one of the country’s most controversial movies to this day. A movie many actors wouldn’t touch after
reading the script, Balabanov’s longtime cinematographer Sergei Astakhov broke
ties with over and later still many cities refused to play, Cargo 200 despite
claims by the writer-director of it being based on true stories of life in the
Soviet Union is something of a postmodern reimagining of William Faulkner’s
equally controversial Sanctuary.
Whatever the case, this could well be among the only films of its kind
we’ll ever see from the country in the near future.
Leningrad State University professor Artyom Kazakov (Leonid
Gromov) is visiting his brother district military commissioner Colonel Mikhail
in the fictional Leninsk Oblast where he is introduced to Valery Buadze (Leonid
Bichevin) a young alcoholic party animal dating his niece Liza. Artyom departs to visit his mother but his
car breaks down on the way, forcing him to seek help from a nearby isolated
farmhouse where he meets the boozing cantankerous murder convict moonshiner
owner Aleksey (Aleksei Serebryakov from Nobody and Anora), his
wife Antonina (Natalya Akimova), a Vietnamese worker and a strange drifter
whose identity remains a mystery. After
arguing the validity of faith and religion over Soviet atheism, the intoxicated
Artyom leaves the scene deciding he is too drunk to visit his mother.
As he’s leaving, Valery jilted by Liza goes to a disco
concert alone, getting drunk with Liza’s friend Angelika (Agniya Kuznetsova)
before they show up at the same farmhouse in search of more booze, telling
Angelika to stay in the car and wait while he replenishes their supply. However instead of getting the booze, he gets
blackout drunk with Aleksey while the same mystery man peers inside the car to
the young woman’s fright. Coming indoors
where she finds Valery passed out, she finds herself fending off the unwanted
advances of the moonshiner and with his wife’s help hides in the barn. However, with the help of the Vietnamese
worker the mystery man reveals himself to be Captain Zhurov (Alexey Poluyan) a
local sexually impotent policeman who lives in an apartment outside of
industrial factories with his deranged alcoholic mother and he kidnaps the girl
and imprisons her by handcuff to his bed, proceeding to defile and terrorize
her with the help of prison inmates at gunpoint.
Cynical to the core, increasingly absurd and transgressive, Cargo
200 is something of a Russian The Texas Chainsaw Massacre where out
in the country off the beaten path lies lawlessness and murder, decrepitude and
souls that have been drained dry of their humanity. Something of a mixture of hard-hitting almost
neorealist melodrama and screwball sardonic humor in a way that’s
indistinguishable from any other kind of movie, the film has drawn comparisons
to the works of Catherine Breillat and Gaspar Noe for its ability to engender
disgust, rage and despair. Ostensibly a
comedy of errors that keeps getting worse and worse, taunting you to leave the theater
early or shut it off, the film represents Alexei Balabanov at the height of his
creative powers taking moviegoers places few if any other Russian films dared
to go but not without reason.
With arrestingly squalid production design by Pavel
Parkhomenko shot bleakly and with heavy grain levels by Alexander Simonov after
Sergei Astakhov stepped down from cinematographic duties and a rich cacophony
of Soviet needle drops including but not limited to Ariel, Zemlyane, DK, Kola
Beldy, Yuri Loza and even a staged concert scene with Viktor Tsoi on stage
performing the very first Kino track There is Time, But No Money, Cargo
200 is a staggeringly dark production.
Some of the scenes inside the Soviet cop’s apartment with flies buzzing
about the room endlessly with an overarching sense of decay and rot are enough
to make you search for the nearest shower.
And there’s no original score to speak of, leaving viewers even more
alone in their interpretation of the horrific events unfolding.
The ensemble cast of characters here, starting with Agniya
Kuznetsova as the poor kidnapped girl Angelika, are all stellar and go the full
distance of whatever is asked of them. Kuznetsova
shoulders a lot with this film and has to portray some pretty terrible sexual
abuses but she was dating actor Leonid Bichevin at the time who was present on
set for her difficult scenes. Equally
far out on a limb is actor Aleksey Poluyan as the demented sexually impotent
Captain Shurov who, mid movie, gives a half-hearted wicked grin that’s enough
to siphon your soul from your spine.
Reportedly the actor faced harassment from viewers who were too deeply
disturbed by his performance. Aleksei Serebryakov needs no introduction as the boozing moonshiner, a terrific actor
who all but completely inhabits every role he’s in. Having just appeared in Anora as a
Russian oligarch, it was gratifying to see him show up in this jet-black waking
nightmare of a film.
Called by some critics ‘the most anti-Soviet film possible’,
Cargo 200 opened in Russia to enormous controversy with some theaters
either refusing to carry the film or sell tickets to customers. After the Kinovatr Film Festival devolved
into scandal following the picture’s win of the Russian Film Critics Guild
Prize, the film was rejected outright by the Cannes Film Festival despite a
longstanding relationship with French film critic Joel Chapron. Despite this, the film went on to win the
Gijon International and Rotterdam International Film Festivals prizes for Best
Director and some even called it Alexei Balabanov’s best film. Given a limited theatrical release in the
United States, however, the film was met with critical acclaim drawing comparisons
to Delicatessen and other like-minded grisly social satires.
Looking at it now, having seen three of the director’s other
films leading up to it, the biggest shock is that this came out of Russia at
all. Bold and daring, galvanizing and in
the end kind of devastating, Cargo 200 is one of the darkest social
satires not just in Russia but in the world.
The kind of button pushing cinematic molestation only a brilliant
provocateur could’ve imagined, it is a masterfully conceived and executed
poison pill of a movie some have called ‘a documentary of Soviet life’ while
others have referred to it as allegorical for modern Russia. Whatever the case, wherever your
sociopolitical leanings lie, Cargo 200 will elicit a gut reaction from
you whether its laughter or revulsion or anger as writer-director Alexei
Balabanov proceeds to play you like an irradiated piano, sometimes dancing on
your bruised back in the process.
--Andrew Kotwicki
