Brilliant and touching

An action-packed slog

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

only a poem. bitter, cold, honest image against reality, precise verdict about an institution. in same measure, an aesthetic delight. because it seems be at the border between dream and reality.because, behind eroticism or humiliations, it preserves the flavor of Paradjanov , Sokurov or Tarkovsky work, the fundamental lines from war films and the precise verdict about a political system. more than a film, it is a wake up. a strange story from East, aggressive and delicate, terrible and useful. the force of images does, in many scenes, the story only a pretext. and the feeling after the final credits remains long time as convincing warning/testimony in the memory of the viewer.

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.

I watched the film with my DVD player on double and sometimes quadruple speed and I don't think i missed a thing.Since when does the army(of any country)take the time to have each soldier laboriously sponge bath one another? Why, when a soldier comes into the barracks drunk and late while everybody is asleep, does he pee on another guys face? WHY DID EVERYBODY JUST STARE AT THE CAMERA!?!?!?!?!?! Yeah, there were some artistically done shots, but they were not enough to make up for the three minute shots of absolutely nothing happening. For instance the time when the soldiers were all standing in a group. The camera panned across there faces, which took like two minutes. Then when the camera got the end it started panning back in the other direction. The whole scene took like 5 minutes and and I didn't even recognize any of the people in it.I've seen a lot of art-house films and a lot of art and film in general in my life, but this film was just kinda boring.

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.