Svetlana Bulynenkova

Mefody, a wise master, comes to a weird village one day to teach local men wisdom and life. The strange thing about the village is all the men living there are of different nationalities: German, Jewish, Ukrainian, Russian, Uzbek, Gypsy etc.. Mefodi teaches all them the way to understand each other, he speaks about music, cabala, fairy tales, sex etc. Finally all of them become even more friendly to each other and find success in life.

In Russia, in 1907, a rich lenient husband of a loose unfaithful woman is brutally murdered. She and her two lovers are suspects, but what about the stranger she met just before the murder? With no friends left, she and the stranger bond.

With a brother dedicated to punk rock stardom at any cost and a drunken father who chases skirt between robotic dancing lessons from the TV, young Senka stands as much chance of nurture as the hero of Truffaut's 400 Blows. The amazing thing about Ogorodnikov's film is that it was made in Russia. Clearly, plenty of Soviet teenies share the nihilistic feelings of their Western counterparts, and the extensive footage of safety-pin chic at concerts perhaps points to a sound export instinct on the director's part. Senka's brother Kostya is under pressure from Howmuch, a very heavy rocker, to steal a synthesiser from the Community Centre, so to protect him Senka steals it himself. The story occupies little more space than the music, but the performances are splendid enough to lodge Senka's predicament in the heart.