Alternately funny and frightening, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s documentary features a compilation of dashboard videos posted online by Russian drivers showing collisions, near-misses, chases, and encounters with police, thugs, and apparent lunatics, the latter including one man who lies down in the middle of a road and another who hops on the hood of a moving car and simply refuses to budge. Some sequences stand out: the opening, in which two men see a meteor or plane streaking across the sky and try to follow it to its crash point; a harrowing journey through a forest fire raging on both sides of the road; police chasing a speeding red car that seems to be headed for the Kremlin; an explosion when a woman at a gas station uses a cigarette lighter to illuminate the pump (leading the camera car to speed away posthaste); and the stupefied reaction of a driver when he careens into a river and is carried off by the current. Even with the short running time, a sense of repetitiveness does set in, and many of these mini-stories end inconclusively—we never learn what the object falling from the sky was, and the red car simply disappears without explanation. But the action—usually on icy, snow-swept highways—carries a visceral thrill. Judging by the number of views for the video clips featured here, this should definitely appeal to fans of oddball YouTube entries. Extras include two short documentaries by Kalashnikov, as well as an interview with the director. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)
The Road Movie
(2017) 67 min. In Russian w/English subtitles. DVD: $34.99, Blu-ray: $39.99. Oscilloscope (avail. from most distributors). Volume 33, Issue 4
The Road Movie
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