Mikhail Brashinsky's Gololed (Black Ice, 2003) is another Russian film which at first also invites the comment that a good-looking woman doesn't always make a good-to-watch film. The director has said that he wanted to create a female character who is always energetic and never ever stops. That she is blonde and smart goes without saying. Yet this film becomes something very different. The focus shifts away from the woman to rest on an awkward gay man. What he is trying to do and why he finds it so difficult we are never quite sure. One doesn't spend too much time thinking about it, however; the film's look is too absorbing. It was shot with digital video cameras and transferred to 35 mm in what the director calls a "low-tech" procedure. The shaky, out-of-focus, but, above all, very luminous appearance that results has something of a cross between faux documentary and television advertising. Surprisingly, the director claims not to watch TV. Yet "I'm aware that it exists", he says, nevertheless. The film has not yet been released in Russia and the public response to its matter-of-fact portrayal of gay life and love remains to be seen.
Source : www.kinoeye.org