Assa (1987)

Memorable, crazy movie

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

One can find many redeeming qualities inside this movie, I am sure. But to me it is a very peculiar film to be enjoyed.My point is: certain things are destroying this movie. Here I mean unpleasant and filthy atmosphere. It creeps onto you gradually and makes viewing of the whole thing kind of repellent. Yes, it's got nice pieces of music (including the last song performed by a cult Soviet/Russian musician), it's got some inventive touches: weird vocabulary (too detailed though), a strange Bananan's "dream" sequence (too short and cheap); strange theatrical "freak-show" (too depressive and awkward to my taste), juxtaposition of different time periods in the history of our country (too dark and gloomy), and so on. It has wacky characters (schizophrenics, dwarfs, boozers, punks, maniacal killers, and Soviet squares) as well. But if the movie is aesthetically repellent, it gets into a ditch no matter how much potential it has. First time I saw it, it seemed fresh and innovative, but in the course of time it gets … plain (meaning "ugly") and sick, sorry.By the way, in our country a gramophone record "Assa" was once released that contained all the songs from the movie (as I remember, "VVS, Voienno-Vozdushniye Sily" was our favourite at school).Can give it 4 out of 10 only (the points are mostly for its freaking pieces of music compositions - alas, this movie is an example of "frustrated gifts", like "A Clockwork Orange"). Thank you for attention.

However, the ONLY reason that most Russians saw this movie is Viktor Tsoy, credited in the titles. Actually, it was more of a cameo appearance. Absolute rock legend Tsoy made this film's success, especially after his accidental and mysterious death soon after release.For fans : his appearance within the film lasts about 30 seconds. However, there is a stunning piece of live concert footage playing in the background during the end credits.The film IS quite decent, although the plot is rather confusing. Personally, however, I spent the entire movie waiting for Tsoy to appear, as he was credited as if he was in the main cast. In fact, his first appearance is AFTER the dramatic finale... And has little if anything to do with the plot. This may have something to do with the fact that, besides his brilliant music career, he got an actor of the year award for the film 'Igla' (The Needle).Basically, his casting is a scam --- to get a star into the cast to draw young audiences. He participated to support the lead actor, a close friend.

*** Some Spoilers ***I guess one thing you have to remember is when this movie was done. It was a weird time as the country was going through changes and this film was that: different. It's not that it's the best movie ever made, or even a finer one, but what is important is not what it was, but what it wasn't: and that is it was not like all other soviet movie to date. It was commenting on the reality in a different way and to some degree was far more open than movies of the past. Case and point, when bananan argues with a cop about his earing. It was an argument of "I want" vs the old and tried soviet "Not Allowed". The Victor Tsoy song, in the end, asking for change, was again commenting on the same theme, that status quo is just not possible any more. Even the two lovers: the old vs new somehow relate to the theme. The plot itself is very shakespearean: older man, younger woman... younger man... younger woman falls in love with younger man... older man kills younger man... younger woman kills older man. It's really simple but yet it doesn't truly explain why people like this film. Overall, I think it became popular because it came at the right time, rather than anything else. I think a person, even who is not from soviet union can easily enjoy the film. I give it a 6 out of 10.

When I think of this now, 12 years after I saw this movie for the first time, I can probably compare it somehow with "Fargo". The same gloomy colors, the same snow everywhere, the same slow motion of people dozing in winter like bears. The same sad realism in all the scenes, including the car chases, the same end. And also -- and this is the most amazing of it all, in my opinion -- the same feeling of light you experience at the end, despite the end which can hardly be called happy.This film also has a winning mixture of criminal plot and love triangle. (Remember "Heat"?). A young girl is waiting for her lover in the snowy Yalta, and he comes one night too late because of the storm -- and in this one night she meets a young musician who offers her to spend the night in his apartment. (Mind you, this is a Soviet film -- there are no sex scenes at all in the movie, but the simplest gestures become erotic as they are real, as we all have been in those situations of late teens who just discover each other). Her lover is an underworld tycoon who manages to plan some more of his dark affairs, to mislead the KGB trail and to entertain the girl -- he saw for everything but the musician. Clever, rich, attractive, charming when needed (although extremely cruel when needed as well), brilliantly educated erudite -- he can do nothing against a young boy who has nothing but a pure heart and a love this heart can generate. And as usual in the love triangles, it does not end well for the involved sides -- for some lethally, for some with awful soul scars...The movie is slow and viscous -- but this is its charm. The music of Grebenschikov (and the XVII-century piece of "Gorod Zolotoi", of course) became a real Russian classic; the historical jumps to the times of Paul I look like an original move of Sergei Solovyov and not like a ridiculous trial to look educated. The guest appearance of Victor Tsoi seems well-timed as well. And finally, Sergei Bugayev (the musician) has a winning role in itself, a martyr against his will -- but to play the parts of Alika and Krymov, it took all the talent of Tatyana Drubich and Stanislav Govorukhin, and they deliver the performances which will never be forgotten.A good test of movies' quality is watching it again, 10-12 years after its release. I watched it recently, and it became worse -- the colors of the Soviet film faded, and the voices became muter. Technicalities. But as for the movie itself, I dreamt of it at night. This was an epochal movie for the 80-ies, but one that remains as a monument even in the XXI century.