Why Don’t You Just Die!
directed by Kirill Sokolov
starring Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Vitaliy Khaev, Evgeniya Kregzhde
You want dark comedy? Russia has dark comedy. Beautiful Olea (Kregzhde) wants her daddy Andrei (Khaev) dead. Her dopey boyfriend Matvey (Kuznetsov) wraps a claw hammer in painters’ tape and heads over to the apartment to do his girlfriend’s bidding. Andrei is a tough old bird; he has muscles, no hair and runs the Moscow police department. Matvey doesn’t do a very good job of murder, instead he ends up handcuffed to the plumbing as Andrei drills holes in his leg, trying to get him to talk. Then Andrei’s wussy sidekick Yevgenich (Michael Gor) appears. He whimpers about his wife and her terminal cancer, and the cops go off to shake down some rich family with a dumb kid who likes to kill hookers. Andrei snags the money, Yevgenich breaks down and everyone dies, except for crippled Matvey. Russians – they don’t mess around.
I’m leaving out most of the really good parts. This claustrophobic film exists mostly in the arsenic green apartment Andrei and his weeping wife live in. His put upon wife cries her way through murders, doing her best to serve tea and Russian hospitality to the parade of bleeding guests. The killings are creative, my favorite comes when Andrei and Matvey attempt to tag team murder each other with a 28 inch glass computer monitor. Then there’s a greet scene where Matvey has to lick a hairpin put of the bathtub so he can pick the handcuff locks. If you ever seen a movie with “The worst toilet in Scotland” I can assure you that Moscow has even more disgusting sanitary fixtures. As with life itself, in the end most of this cast is dead. In the special features you can explore the connection to film noir and the existentialism of mid-century Westerns in a lively discussion film scholar who can keep you hopping. Other special features show the actual filming, I loved the enthusiastic crew that worked to put this show together. This movie is gross, stunning and one of the blackest comedies of the New Wave of Russian film makers. Be warned: wear old clothes, Russian blood stains do not surrender easily.
https://www.arrowfilms.com/product-detail/why-don-t-you-just-die–blu-ray/FCD1982
