Perfectly adorable

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

it is the rare 'crazy' movie that actually has something to say.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Oh my .... my Russian film kick has turned up a rarefied film. Its vaguely about a Russian boot camp. Lots of young soldiers looking at the camera, looking at each other. Marching by in uniform, by the dozens. Swimming. Mass sponge baths. Yes they give each other sponge baths.This film makes me speechless. Can a movie possibly be this bad? And its quite artistically filmed, with lots of locales and a big cast. Nothing really happens during the movie, although there seems to be some subtle winking going on between the soldiers. But then there's other soldiers that keep exclaiming "Don't goggle me!".The movie manages to be as slow as a snail, yet impossible to figure out whats going on.the camera slowly dollies past each scene, which is generally a bunch of soldiers doing the same thing. They may be standing at attention.... they may be walking down the hallway, but you get to watch all 200 or so soldiers pass, every time. When they pan over the faces of the soldiers standing at attention, you get to see the motionless expression of, like all of them!

This is one of those enigmatic 'artistic' films beloved of intellectuals and elitists that will mystify everyone else due to the internalised nature of its narrative (if it can be called such) which makes its meaning virtually impenetrable. In fact trying to describe it is like trying to describe a colour to a blind man: each scene is its own little story that bears little or no relation to those that precede or follow it. People die, but we never learn why. People stare at each other without talking. There's a lot of nudity, and this being a film about soldiers, much of it is of a homoerotic nature. Oh, and there's lots of cameras – so they're probably quite meaningful, although I couldn't say why. In fact I think I might have been watching the out-takes.

At first sight, comparisons with Tarkovsky and Sokurov are inevitable. However, although this film is visually striking and very atmospheric, it seems to lack balance between the cinematographic and the narrative parts. Watching this movie, feels a little like watching a slide-show by a great photographer.An interesting experience, great to look at, but something is missing. Some parts are obviously dreams or hallucinations, but then I'm still not sure what statement the director intended to make by these parts. Maybe it's all intended to be a dream, and it does indeed have nightmarish qualities. At times I felt like I was watching life shortly before and/or after a nuclear catastrophe. Despite my criticism about "the missing plot" I can't seem to get this movie out of my mind, so it might be brilliant after all. If not, it's still an interesting look "backstage" at how life may have been for soldiers in the red army.

This is, and I guess, will remain, an extremely underrated film. There is no chance that those of us who are just a little bit intellectually lazy will like it. The viewer's participation in creating (or re-creating) the plot is absolutely required, to an even higher extent than in Bertolucci's "Besieged". This short film consists of several disconnected vignettes from the life of the Red Army soldiers living, training, working - and let us not forget: washing themselves - on an army base. The country is deserted and the buildings are dilapidated, but everything is beautifully shot. The atmosphere is oneiric, the dreams and imaginations blend with the reality, thus resembling the works of the Master - Andrei Tarkovsky or the Disciple - Aleksander Sokurov. There is not much dialog, which leaves us on our own to interpret sometimes surrealistic happenings on the screen. As in many other soldier movies, the topic is the clash between individual's humanity and the inherent brutality of the system. The clash is treated very delicately, there is not a single scene of the direct physical violence in the movie. Yet, we witness - or infer, for that matter - hazing and several deaths on the camp. Although not an overly gay film, it is remarkably open in its homoerotic subtexts. In contrast, the scenes with direct nudity, like those in the showers or the pool, are devoid of eroticism. They are shot in a documentaristic style, but the beautiful sacral music of Johann Sebastian Bach gives them another meaning and elevates them to unanticipated heights. The film opens with a biblical motto and it is not a chance that the story of St. George battling the dragon appears twice in the movie. Another hint to a deeper meaning of the film is that two persons of the cast are named Death and Angel... As for the acting, there will be some that will not like it, but, incredibly, all the roles are played by real-life soldiers, except for one professional actor (guess which). Watching "Sto dnei do prikaza" (and I recommend to watch it multiple times ) is a strange, difficult, but rewarding experience.