I absolutely loved the energy of this mad Soviet/French co-production from just before the end of Communism.
It is about an unlikely friendship between an angry, aggressive taxi driver and a childish, irresponsible, insane and impish alcoholic/saxophonist. When the two men aren’t trying to kill one another they are hanging out in a dirty apartment yelling.
This is a gloriously ugly film, blending the best of Kusturica’s Underground, Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise and Gilliam’s Fisher King. You can smell the mildew in the repugnant locations and it all feels wonderfully alive and real.
This pic won big at Cannes in 1990 but I’ll admit I never heard of it til the DVD release from about one or two years ago. It’s been sitting on my mythical “pile” of review DVDs I am lucky enough to receive, but don’t ever get around to. Funnily enough, it was a different movie that I was going to watch, Cargo 200, that I first popped in. For some reason it wouldn’t work on my Blu-ray player and I thought, “hey, I think I have another Russian film laying around here somewhere.” Nothing against Cargo 200, but I’m glad it didn’t work.
