Absurdistan
Absurdistan
| 20 January 2008 (USA)
Absurdistan Trailers

An allegorical comedy centered on two childhood sweethearts who seem destined for one another until the women of their isolated village, angered by male indifference toward the water shortage, go on a sex strike that threatens the young couple's first night of love.

Reviews
Supelice

Dreadfully Boring

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Sexyloutak

Absolutely the worst movie.

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Billie Morin

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

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Zlatica

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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KissEnglishPasto

........ ........... ............ ............ ............ ..from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA and ORLANDO, FL The Title says it all: ABSURDISTAN. An International/Russian film that has its ups and downs, so to speak! And the emphasis here is really on "INTERNATIONAL"! German Director/Co-Writer: Veit Helmer; Azerbaijani Co- Writer: Zaza Buadze; Female Lead: Kristyna Malerova-No INFO on her nationality, but surname appears to be Czech; German Male Lead: Max Mauff; The rest of the cast hails from at least a dozen different European and Westeren Asian countries! This explains why so few cast members were given dialog...Most of them either don't speak Russian, or speak it with a very discernible accent! ABSURDISTAN is a very visual experience. IMDb talks about how the 40 year old Helmer loved silent films in his university film studies. Perhaps this is why the word "Slapstick" is bantered about a lot referring to this film. Slapstick is very over-the-top. Absurdistan's style is much too "Tableauesque" (Coining term via poetic license!) to be labeled slapstick. But whatever you want to call it: It works...Most of the time.FANTASY is another term people seem insistent upon using to explain segments of the film. I'd say there are a few mildly surreal/absurd moments, but nothing beyond that. ABSURDISTAN really doesn't remind me of any other film, except perhaps 1960's Never on Sunday. There is one brief moment of nudity. AYA, the female lead, can't sleep owing to the heat, and climbs up on the roof, removing her pajamas. Temelko spots her and chases her around for a moment, but that's it. There is a little simulated sex done with clothes-on, but aimed much more at comedy than at any type of arousal.Oddly, I perceive ABSURDISTAN as a perfect extended family get-together flick, provided everyone is over 14 or 15! It's very easy to imagine a large Eastern-European family getting together and having an exceptionally enjoyable time watching this! If anybody tries my suggestion, let me know how it works out, please! 7*....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!Any comments, questions or observations, in English or Español, are most welcome!.....KissEnglishPasto@Yahoo.com

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Roedy Green

The characters in this film are hideous, dirty, obese, malodorous and unkempt. The hero is a handsome gangly teenage boy. He is in love with a pretty, tomboyish but cruel young lady. The elders behave like characters in a Benny Hill movie. They pantomime extreme sexual attraction to each other, and spend a lot of time in non-consensual sex. The village breaks out into Lysistrata like war between the sexes over the male refusal to repair the water supply. They shoot each other. They lay vicious traps of various kinds for each other. Everyone sleeps with rifles and sets them off by accident repeatedly. I did not find this amusing. These people were psychopaths. At the end, boy gets girl, though I was not too happy about this. She had repeatedly abused him so badly, I hoped for a new love for him.

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Roland E. Zwick

Reportedly based on a true story (though with quite a bit of legendary embellishment, one assumes, at least in its more fantastical elements), "Absurdistan" takes place in a remote village where the women wage a full-fledged battle-of-the-sexes, agreeing to withhold their conjugal duties until the men in the community repair the pipe that for decades has brought water to the town. The story also features Tamelko (Max Mauff) and Aya (Kristyna Malerova) as two teenagers whose own plans to finally consummate their relationship must now be put on hold.Homespun in appearance and humanistic in tone, "Absurdistan" (a German film done in Russian) is highly reminiscent of those quirky Czech comedies that enjoyed such popularity here in the States back in the 1960s. The scenes set in the past have been deliberately designed to look like aging home movies - grainy, washed-out, and scratchy - while those set in the present are crisp, clean and bursting with color.The movie blends small town humor with touches of magic realism and the occasional flight of fancy. There are times, admittedly, when the movie gets a little too silly and cutesy for its own good, but, on the positive side, it never takes itself too seriously or condescends to its characters. The mood is upbeat and the details charming in what amounts to a modern-day (but not TOO modern-day) version of "Lysistrata."

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ArizWldcat

This feature was filmed in Azerbaijan. This is remarkable since the main theme of the story involves sex, and in a Muslim country, this type of movie is definitely frowned upon. The story surrounds a young couple, Ava and Temelko. They are madly in love and have been told by her fortune-telling grandmother the night they may consummate their relationship. However, before the special night arrives, they run into problems as the lazy men of the town they inhabit have not performed any maintenance on the town's water pipes and they have broken. The women are fed up with having to do without water and go on "strike"...no water, no sex. The movie reminds me a little of "The Gods Must Be Crazy;" silly and slapstick humor along with a little more subtle humor underneath. The performances of Kristyna Malerova and Max Mauff were sympathetic and amusing.To the reviewer below, I got my "facts" from the director of the film at the screening I attended...I was just repeating what I heard. I took the man (and the others involved in the film who agreed with him) at his word, and I think you are taking this commentary just a tad too seriously.

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