The Muslim (1995)
A Russian soldier who spent ten years in captivity in Afghanistan, returns to his home village and shocks all its inhabitants because of his conversion to Islam. During his absence, his father hanged himself, his brother served a prison term and his former fiancée has become a woman of very low morals. The village is the scene of endless drinking while the local boss is selling off the land for dollars to new-rich Russians. Our hero turns out as the only sober and hard-working member of the community. However, his attachment to his new faith soon provokes the hatred and rejection of everyone else, including his own family.
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Waste of time
It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
There is a fine line between a film that criticises society and a film that outright assaults society. This one falls into the latter category. It has absolutely nothing good to say about the Russian people, and nothing bad to say about the people who slit the throats of young Russian men. The idea that the protagonist wasn't killed when captured, and was even welcomed into Afghan society, seems fantastic. And what do the filmmakers do with this fantastic scenario? They use it as a plot device to show us just how sick, corrupt, and depraved every Russian in existence is. No one is spared here: his family, friends, locals, politicians, priests, his army buddies... But here's the ironic twist: While the film wants to portray as corrupt all these people who reject or even wish to murder the protagonist turned muslim, it makes the viewer wonder: Isn't at least that a redeeming feature of Russian society? Had an Afghan turned Christian, his own people would have killed him. These are the people whose morality the film glorifies from beginning to end. But perhaps it also means that Russian society still has the strength to condemn a traitor, despite all its shortcomings?
I have seen a lot of movies, both Russian and American, and very few movies left a lasting impression on my heart, but even those movies were not as touching as the movie "Musulmanin" or "Muslim". This movie is a truly amazing work of art, and it definitely deserves more than one Oscar. The actors, especially Evgeniy Mironov who played the main character Kolya Ivanov, went above and beyond to make this movie unforgettable and incomparable. This movie should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Directing. Evgeniy Mironov should have won the Academy Award for Best Actor. I even want to say that the way Evgeniy Mironov portrays the life of a Muslim in an impoverished Russian village deserves more than one Oscar. I think the actor understood his character so well that they became one. This doesn't happen often in the world of cinematography. I have never seen a better actor performance than Evgeniy Mironov in the movie "Musulmanin". I think this movie should be shown in all large movie theaters of the world. More people should see the real beauty of art and the best movie ever made. I hope not to hurt anybody's feelings if I say that this movie left a deeper impression in my mind than the movie "Titanic" and other movies that won Oscars. What makes this movie an unforgettable work of art? - The best actor performance and the sadness in the eyes of the main character Kolya Ivanov played by wonderful Evgeniy Mironov, who is an absolutely beautiful person from inside and outside.
I did not particularly like this movie. During the Soviet times many Russian movies portrayed religious people as stupid and narrow-minded. In the 90's the trend reversed and this movie is an example of it. Too much emphasis on religion, and you feel that the makers of the movie are trying to push religion on you (whatever religion it might be).The movie also attempts to be fancy-shmancy with symbolism, but the attempts seem quite forced.The portrayal of a Russian village of the mid-90's is fairly accurate, but that's about the only redeeming feature of this flick.> and as far as this goes, 60% of Russian population lives in villages > like the one shownWhat an ignorant comment! FYI, 75% of Russians live in urban environments, and of the remaining 25% plenty live in quite prosperous villages (such as one where I spent most of the summers of my childhood in the early and mid-90's which is exactly when the movie is supposed to be taking place).
Nice shots of countryside, ponds, meadows, log cabins. But aside from that, it was too slow and the dialogs too boring. Not an urbanite bunch, small rural village society but presented awkwardly and grotesque (take for example the scene of people jumping into the river to catch dollar bills floating).