Aleksey BALABANOV Алексей БАЛАБАНОВ Alekseï BALABANOV   Russia, 2007, 100 mn  Colour, fiction

Freight 200 / Cargo 200 ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ Груз 200    Cargaison 200  Gruz 200

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Plot synopsis

Drama.
USSR 1984. On the eve of perestroika, during the Afghan war. Military planes with zinc coffins (cargo 200) do not bypass the small provincial town of Leninsk. A young girl lives here; she is in love with a lad who serves in Afghanistan. He perishes. The militiaman Zhurov, a typical Soviet madman, is in love with the girl. After a disco, the daughter of the Communist Party committee’s secretary goes missing. There are no witnesses, and the culprit is not found. On the same evening, a gruesome murder happens in a house on the town’s periphery. The house owner is guilty of the crime. Both investigations are led by police captain Zhurov...
Source : www.moscowfilmfestival.ru

 

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Commentaries and bibliography

The Self and the Other in Recent Russian Cinema, Birgit BEUMERS, kinokultura.com, 2010

Aleksei Balabanov : Cargo 200 (Gruz 200, 2007), Anthony ANEMONE, kinokultura.com, 2007

 

1984 : in a small corrupt town within the USSR, a scientist, a psychopathic policeman, a farmer and his daughter drown their sorrows in vodka, thus beginning their spiral into hell. Abduction, rape and murder pile up in this furious thriller that allows Alexei Balabanov to return to the pre-perestroika period of his country and to evoke the Afghanistan war. The director denounces the era’s violence and anarchy, refusing to fall back into an easy nostalgia, 23 years on, when dealing with the Soviet period. Balabanov at his best. The eleventh film by Alexei Balabanov is the longest awaited and probably most spoken about film of his career. From its announcement in script form to the premiere at the Sochi film festival, the film has given cause for emotional reactions. It is a provocation à la Balabanov par excellence. It seems like all the elements of previous films such as Brother, Of Freaks and Men and Dead Man's Bluff can be doubled here. This harsh pre-Perestroika thriller is about a maniacal policeman, his mother, the local party leader and his daughter and many others in Leninsk, a small Soviet town. It is set to the background of the Soviet-Afghan war. Balabanov wanted to draw a picture of the dying 'body' of the USSR and make a statement against the current rise of Soviet nostalgia. A small newspaper article became an inspiration for this mirror of the moral decay of the period. The daughter of the local communist party leader disappears without a trace after leaving a disco club. During the same evening a cruel murder is committed on the outskirts of the town. Both cases are investigated by the local police captain.
As some of the actors with whom Balabanov cooperated before refused to become a part of this harsh drama, he has successfully collaborated with newcomers and less known faces. The final picture of the times seems to be painfully realistic, almost surrealistic. (LC)
Source : www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com

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Selected in the following festivals :

- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2013

- Bradford International Film Festival, Bradford (United Kingdom), 2013

- Sputnik nad Polska, Warsaw (Poland), 2012

- Sputnik nad Polska, Warsaw (Poland), 2011

- Sputnik nad Polska, Warsaw (Poland), 2009

- Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne (Australia), 2008

- Sofia International Film Festival, Sofia (Bulgaria), 2008

- Hong-Kong International Film Festival, Hong Kong (China), 2008

- Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic), 2008

- Festival of Central and Eastern Film , Wiesbaden (Germany), 2008

- The Dublin International Film Festival, Dublin (Ireland), 2008

- Rotterdam International Film Festival, Rotterdam (Netherlands), 2008

- Transilvania International Film Festival : TIFF, Cluj Napoca (Romania), 2008

- Festival Russian kino 'Moscow Premier Screenings', Moscow (Russia), 2008

- Belgrade International Film Festival, Belgrade (Serbia), 2008

- Clevelant International Film Festival, Cleveland (USA), 2008

- Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Tessaloniki (Greece), 2007

- Festival Russian cinema in Israel, Tel Aviv (Israel), 2007

- Venice International Film Festival, Venice (Italy), 2007

- "NIKA" Prizes, Moscow (Russia), 2007

- Annual award of the Guild of Historians of Cinema and Film Critics, Moscow (Russia), 2007

- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2007

- Film Festival of CIS countries, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia "Kinoshock", Anapa (Russia), 2007

- Window to Europe Film Festival, Vyborg, Vyborg (Russia), 2007

- Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), Moscow (Russia), 2007

- International Film Festival Bratislava, Brastislava (Slovakia), 2007

- The Times BFI London Film Festival, London (United Kingdom), 2007

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