I watched two movies yesterday. The first was Brother from 1997. It’s Russian. A young man moves to St. Petersburg to link up with his brother, who happens to be a hitman for the mob. It turns out the protag is a better killer than his brother (or anyone else in their petty world) expected. The violence is matter-of-fact and quick. Danila represents this kind of frightening, enigmatic antihero. He just wants to listen to his Discman!
The shittiness of the music cracked me up. The soundtrack to the film itself is good, but Danila is obsessed with this godawful band. I’m not sure if that was a joke, or if the filmmakers thought it was good music. Hard to tell when you’re talking about late ’90s Russia!
St. Petersburg looks incredible. All flaking paint and desolation. You can make any movie good with proper cinematography. I don’t care about story, but I do want to exist in a vibe for an hour and a half or so. Sustaining the vivid dream, as JH would say.
The other movie was Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989). I’ll be talking about this one on the Agitator podcast soon, so I won’t write about it here. What a crazy movie. Relentless!
Broken River Blog 