Month: December 2004

Vozvrashcheniye

Olga and I watched “Vozvrashcheniye” (also known as “The Return”) on the DVD. I know I said before that I was not going to watch any Russian movies in the near future. But this one was recommened by a few people who’s opinion I trust. Also it had a pretty hight rating of 8.1/10 on IMDB and it was available from the local DVD club (in Cyprus!). All of these pushed me into watching it.

The film was not a disappointment. Camera work and photography were really impressive and by far better than in any Russian movie that I have seen so far. Any. There was no usual depression, violence, and abuse of all forms of culture too, although the film was kind of dark and dessaturated. Very ARTistic.

The story was boring. I suspect it has something to do with Russian classic literature. Turgenev maybe, with his “Fathers and sons”. Acting was good. Especially on the part of the younger brother Ivan, delivered by Ivan Dobronravov. Somehow I find him to be very similar to Haley Joel Osment. Interesting bit of trivia – Vladimir Garin, who played the role of the older brother, drowned shortly after the end of shooting in the same lake where several of the picture’s scenes were filmed.

Anyway, this movie is worth watching, at least to make your opinion on Russian cinematography of recent years a little bit more complete and multicolored. 7 out of 10.

Barrels

Barrels

My office window is a source for many of my pictures. Barrels is yet another one. ETKO (?) winery is a nextdoor building to our offices. Among many other things, these guys have an extended collection of barrels stored on the roof of one of their building. I was noticing the pattern for a long time, but only today it occured to me to make a picture.

Album location: /photos/2004/2004-12-04_POTD

Visit to Rosy’O’Gradys

Olga and I pasted by Rosy’O’Gradys today. We came around 22:00 and guys were playing already. My brother said that they actually started few minutes prior to our arrival. Somehow I knew it would be like that.

Anyway, guys played excellently although we stayed briefly. We’ve heard music from “Pulp Fiction” and “From Dusk Till Dawn”, nicely sensored version of “WTF is Alice?”, Venus and some other retro disco stuff and a couple of Russian songs. Nicely, nicely done, indeed.

Rosy’O’Gradys turned out to be a pretty expensive place. Although this time around there was a special ticket price of 1CYP, drinks were at their usual prices. Half pint bottle of Carlsberg is 3CYP and a glass of grapefruit juice is 2.50CYP. This is way too much. I mean, I am used to doubled and trippled prices in clubs, bars, and discos, but this place sounds like 10 times the real life price. Out of my league.

If you still want to go listen to some really good music and dance, fill free to go to Rosy’O’Gradys on Saturdays between 21:00 and midnight. Hopefully, they will play there for some time now.