ccasionally overlooked and frequently discounted from program brochures of veritable Western festival events, Russian cinema has only itself to blame. The consistent cinematic preoccupation with the country's political agitation and social upheaval frequently mars much of the creative spirit and valiant auteurship which could otherwise be channelled towards more avant-garde filmmaking. But even despite such debatable neglect, the talent of the Matushka is certainly capable of audacious moments of cinematic brilliance, having recently spawned a new international drawcard for itself in the shape of Aleksandr Sokurov, of Father and Son and Mother and Son, whose single-take visual extravaganza (and surprise arthouse hit) Russian Ark is one of the most courageous and visually stunning—not to say purely brilliant—movies to grace cinema screens this decade. Add to this the pensive emotional zest of Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return and the CGI-laden, fast-moving action bonanza of Fyodor Bondarchuk's recent The 9th Company, and it becomes clear there is more to Russia than the perestroika and vodka.

But what Russia needs more of are people like Ilya Khrjanovsky. While 4 is far from a modern classic (or a great movie, for that matter) Khrjanovsky extends the ambits of modern Russian filmmaking to a more experimental school of up-and-coming so-percieved dilettantes.

But—let's not fool ourselves—4 is no Russian Ark and Khrjanovsky is no Tarkovsky, and the case it pushes for the cinema of its own country is never as assuringly resounding as it aims to be. 4's cogency is also its Achille's heel: the movie plays like a music video more than anything else and never quite manages to make up in visual eye-candy for what it lacks in narrative engagement. It tells a story, but this is as significant to Khrjanovsky as losing weight is to Alex Kapranos.


What the film has going for it, however, is some vivid location work. The Russian countryside, serving here as much of the movie’s backdrop, has never looked so haunting, so direful, so un-Russian. 4 plays its strongest card at the start, opening with an engaging tête-á-tête in which three strangers—a piano tuner, a meat salesman and a prostitute—swap aberrant stories about their careers. Or do they? These eventually are found to be lies, but the scene is played with such delicate tension and demands our commitment so unostentatiously, we frankly do not give a fig it is fibs we are being fed. Disappointingly, it’s too organically detached from what follows that we are left with an unpleasantly bitter aroma to munch on for the rest of the movie’s duration.

After such an alluring appetizer, the rest of 4 recycles itself in more ways than we are prepared to follow, the eye-catching imagery painfully colliding with the less than accomplished storyline. Khrjanovsky resorts to shock tactics as soon as the movie’s central storyline is revealed—Marina (the prostitute) travels to the countryside for her twin sister’s funeral and discovers a rustic community of morally (and sexually) uninhibited elderly women making dolls out of masticated bread. It is from that point the movie loses much of its sense and the less than satisfying denouement doesn’t aid in reclaiming our lost enthusiasm. You have to laud Khrjanovsky, though, for the few brave, though isolated, spells of filmic brilliance. Halfway though 4 he treats us, muted color compositions and jerky camerawork included, to a compendium of long trailing shots of Marina lumbering across a barren, steel-colored industrial landscape—despite not doing much for the movie as a whole, this turns out to be an arresting, claustrophobic but indulgent visual feast. The rest of the movie is more graphically aggressive—images of elderly women flashing each other, feasting on undercooked pork and hanging bread-faced dolls are supposed to provoke, yet all they do is elicit confused sighs. On top of everything, genetic engineering, cloning and social change are all employed to varying degrees of success in an attempt to justify the numerical title, (“Chetyre” in Russian)—with little clues scattered throughout the script. Too bad it all seems a little pointless.

The mix of visual strategies is echoed by too many narrative ambiguities to make us care about any of the movie’s many plotlines. As a video project there is much to learn from 4’s visual audacity. In that respect, the movie looks perversely great. As a serious contender for “Russian Hit Of The Year,” however, Khrjanovsky has to either embrace his experimental roots wholeheartedly or shift his attention towards narrative coherence if he expects to extend his audience beyond art students and self-involved Converse-wearing media types.