Cinema Derive - Cargo 200
Open: 20:00 - 22:00 hrs
Tickets: € 3
CARGO 200 (2007)
(Груз 200)
Directed by by Aleksei Balabanov
99 minutes
In Russian with English subtitles
Wow, are you looking for an unbelievably dark picture of the disintegrating last days of the Soviet Union? If so, this is the flick for you! It was directed by Aleksei Balabanov, one of the most bold and creative directors emerging from Russia during the last 30 years. This movie works as a harrowing personal story about a young girl, but also as a social commentary about the Afghan war that Russia was involved in at the time. Both of these two levels (the personal and the social) are symbols that reflect off each other and become inseparable. The end result is a devastating portrait of a country collapsing in utter decay.
It's impossible to go into the plot because it has to unfold for itself, but I can say it starts out calmly, but then slowly builds to an absolute crescendo. The whole thing is splashed with emotion and painted with a bleak color palette that's incredibly well crafted, creating a mood that is almost overwhelming. We take an unflinching dive into the last breaths of the USSR, a country wallowing in industrialization, madness, surrealism, and alienation... while everyone is getting drunk and watching junk on television. Today it's known as the late Stagnation period. What director Balabanov did was take William Faulkner's novel Sanctuary about the gothic southern part of the United States in 1929, and transported it totally to the Soviet Union, reframing it with the socio-political climate of the 80s. The movie's title Cargo 200 is a government code word for the coffins of Russian soldiers that are being secretly sent back to their homeland and buried in unofficial unmarked places.
This is a hard-hitting drama involving scenes that are almost unbearable, but still working as a metaphor for the social malaise of those years. In the opening of the film the director states that everything in the plot is based on true events, but I have no idea what the hell he means. The story is so mind-boggling, it's impossible to imagine what parts could have actually happened. But then again, who knows... as they say: life can be stranger than fiction.
