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A Major Disappointment

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

One of the best movies of all times! I love this movie, it is not for everyone, but definitely perfect for some weirdos out there :D if you like the book of movie "the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy" you will like this movie,too. Knowing that it was shot before I was born makes it even more special, because even if for some it is illogical, the film provides a lot of truth about our own world, our own values and communication.

Vladimir Nikolaevich and Skripach are two Earthlings who inexplicably find themselves transported to an alien planet, a vast post-apocalyptic desert, populated by greasy caricatures of people speaking an autistic, monosyllabic language, and strewn with an assortment of peculiar buildings of all shapes and sizes.If there's one thing you can't take away from KIN DZA DZA is that it is imaginative and to an extent a pleasantly absurd sci-fi adventure romp. It is mostly light-hearted fare but not, as it appears, with something of a cerebral nature hiding behind the surface. There is a passing mention on racism and equality but it's never too serious. Where it faulters is in assuming a succession of encounters with cartoonish characters and visits in cartoonish places is enough to sustain its 126 minute length.The best parts of the movie are easily the location work and the set-design. While the camera-work leaves a lot to be desired, the desert landscapes carry with them an air of natural awe. Some of the truly fantastic set-pieces construced include a ferris-wheel in the middle of the desert surrounded by old cabins, a gigantic balloon, a toilet-cum-escape-pod and a weird underground complex where hundreds of people slave away on some kind of labour.The inhabitants of this alien planet speak in a weird language. Every minute someone's saying "Koo!" to someone else, "koo" substituting for almost every word. They call matches "Ketse", their cylindrical spaceships that looks like cans of beans "Pepelats". There are also different races on this planet, the "Chatlans" and the "Patsak" chief among them. This kind of baboonish banter however soon outstays its welcome and becomes a major annoyance. Also, "We don't need Skripanch" seems to be a running joke similar to THE BIG LEBOWSKI's "Shut up Donnie!".Take away however all the little gimmicks KIN DZA DZA consists of and there's no story left to hold it together. The two earthlings simply wander from one place to the next trying to return home, stopping occasionally to sing inside a wooden cage. That's it. A bunch of weird ideas, locations and characters strung together to no purpose. Is it simply a pastiche? An allegory to something? A ready-made cult curio? You be the judge.

While it is easy to say what the film is, a satire about socialisation, it is extremely difficult to liken it to other films, which I'd actually loved to do in order to give the world an idea of what to expect. That'd be, in this case, a valuable service, since this is a very valuable, yet demanding film.I've seen Russian films like the "national hunting"-series or "the diamond arm". They are not bad but neither extraordinary and in order to give you an idea of my view on things I'll liken them to "police academy" in the first and a mixture of "one, two, three" and "chumscrubber" in the second case (the "national hunting"-series starting at least a little better than its counterpart, while "the diamond arm" does of course not reach Wilder's level.)Having this said, I'd like to say that Kin-Dza-Dza is the funniest and by far intellectually most serious comedy that I have ever seen. It is a thought experiment. What happens, if humanities biggest vice, envy, is lifted of it, while the second and third biggest vices, craving for recognition and to turn a blind eye to one's sense of honour, go unchecked. Without anything to honour everything becomes ku or kyu, the individual becoming a mere receiver of petting. That's the dark note that underlies the film, while its humour stems mostly from the brilliant depiction of the people's cravings for recognition.I absolutely love this film and I absolutely love the acting in it. This is berserkly funny, yet discerning stuff.

This is one of the movies which, though at first could be underestimated, have very deep meaning in them. Some of the problems that it touched on are still very alive today. I could compare this movie with the work of Tarkovsky but with added grain of humor and a grain of bitterness. Now what I'm not sure about though is if viewers who don't know Soviet times too well would ever appreciate the subjects of this movie as its real meaning can easily be lost behind the extravagance and surrealism of the pictured events. Additionally, translating the text into other languages would probably negate most of the hidden meaning.To give my understanding of the movie for those who cannot see it, it depicts the stupidity of the artificial social relationships. It shows how hard it can be for the person from outside to understand the social system which is well established and well understood by its participants. One more important thought is how little things like money or social status mean as soon as one falls out the normal way of life.