Film: Chetyre (4)
Dates between Fri 23 Sep - Thu 27 Oct 2005. 

`As close to the experience of an actual nightmare as anything I’ve
 seen on the screen' New York Times

Two men and a woman meet in a Moscow bar and weave extravagant lies
about their lives and professions, setting in motion a ruthless,
relentless three-lane journey into the dark, secret corners of modern
Russia. Beginning with a jarring, dog-endangering prologue, this
collaboration between controversial novelist/playwright Vladimir
Sorokin and young Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky comes on like a
film possessed, constantly morphing into surreal shapes as it careers
through its different characters, styles and themes. Mass conformity,
biological cloning and genetic manipulation represent the challenges
to individual identity here, pushing humanity into the margins and
distorting the world's recognisable form. The resultant pile-up of
nightmares - poetic, grotesque, perplexing - may seem random but
Sorokin and Khrznavosky impose order on the disorder with their
forceful formal authority; it's quite clear that something is going on
- that something is at stake - even if you don't have a clue what it
is. Impossible to classify or compare to other films, 4 stands alone
as a radical, troubling, untamed and urgent vision.

Dir Ilya Khrzanovsky

Russia 2004, 126 mins, Subs