Of Freaks and Men (1998)

The greatest movie ever made..!

An absolute waste of money

A Brilliant Conflict

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This film was made in between the two Brother films, and Balabanov cited it as one of his personal favorites, together with Morphine and Cargo 200. Unquestionably the film features a talented cast, including veteran Viktor Sukhorukov and would be Brother 2 stars Sergei Makovetskiy and Darya Yurgens (Lesnikova). Unfortunately, while the plot is comprehensible, lovers of traditional narrative will find holes here and there that will annoy. If Balabanov wanted to play it loose, he did not go far enough. As a result, we're in the middle of a traditional story and something bordering on the 'mood and symbolism' zone. The tone of the story is dark, as is traditional for Balabanov, but unlike some of his other films it doesn't really give you anything to take home that is redeeming - it leaves the viewer with a sense of depression. Even in the darker and more gruesome Cargo 200 this is not exactly the case. The only reason I give this five stars and not less is that on top of the talented cast Balabanov was blessed to work with, the cinematography and art direction are pretty solid, as is the music. But that alone cannot save a film with a script that is good on characters but weak on the genuineness and commitment of plot.

Of Freaks and Men directed by Alexei Balabanov is a Russian 1998 film. The film in the beginning and near the end is initially black and white, but the majority of it is entirely sepia tone. It utilizes text to provide the audience background information that isn't explicitly shown. The film is so original and playful but border line overly crude which makes the film all the more disturbing. The film is set during the start of the 20th century in St. Petersburg centered around a widowed engineer named Radlov who lives with his daughter Liza and maid Grunia whose brother happens to be a pornographer name Johan. The blind woman Ekaterina and her adopted Siamese twins Kolya and Tolya also play a major role in the film, as their maid is a customer of Johan's pornography. Of Freaks and Men basically reveals that everyone is a "freak" not a single character is what you would call "innocent." The maid of the Siamese twins showing the children the pornography and have one of them touch her breast. The widowers daughter who isn't as innocently as he believes, he literally gets a heart attack when discovering the truth. The Siamese twins don't fall behind with one of them becoming an alcoholic and the other exposing his sexual desires to Liza. The connection between these two families is Johan being that the families are destroyed with his evil. You could possibly argue that the characters in this film were originally weak having already bizarre passions, which I would absolutely agree with.

If you think "A drama from Russia", you'll be wrong. This is a very strange satyre of old Russian literacy and melodrama, told with a wit humour and great originality. Just see: there is a blind woman who falls in love at first sight ("Victor Ivanovich!"), a villain who claims for his nurse, a couple of siamese twins (and one of them couches with the girlfriend of the other...and the other don't have a clue!) and much, much more. Everything is filmed as a mute drama, but in fact it's a very intelligent parody. Just try it. It's an excellent film and contains a lot of comments about politics, cinema, literacy and a very good comic approach at the Dostoïevskian tradition in writing. The use of intertitles and black and white photo it's perfect. And in the second half, there is a lot of good laughs.

While I agree with the previous post that the cinematography is good, I totally disagree with the rest: This is nothing more than a porno movie disguised as an artsy film. Showing little boys naked is not art and amounts to child porn. Steer clear of this dud. Stupid is what this film is.