Review of Brother (1997) by Nurbolat K — 25 Feb 2017

One of the most popular and iconic movies about the life in Post-Soviet areas, Balabanov's movie "Brother" has succeeded in depicting the real situation in the lives of ordinary people after the collapse of the USSR. Displaying the good and evil not in contrast as black and white but in the scales of gray the movie leaves mixed feelings about each of the characters, including the protagonist of the movie - Danila Bagrov played by Sergey Bodrov Jr., a role which let him not only get out of his father's shadow, who is a famous Russian movie director, but also brought him well-deserved fame. The movie's lifelike depiction of the post-Soviet life, showing how a naïve but principled young man can become one of the most ruthless killers affiliated with organized gangs made it popular among the masses and presented the quite pessimistic but still accurate state of the 90s.

The movie does not try to show the viewer a "good" or "bad" reality of the post-Soviet time; it shows the real nineties. The atmosphere of the movie, the dark and cold colors used to show the backyards of Moscow, people living in terrible conditions with a little hope for better changes, the popular and familiar songs of that time; corruption and organized crime taking over the country - everything is represented so accurate that it makes the movie feel like it was filmed just outside of your window and that is the reason of movie's popularity in the CIS countries.

There is nothing clearly good or bad, rather the lesser of two evils when it comes to analyzing the choices of the movie's characters. Unlike the Western movies' protagonists, Danila lives in a real world where sometimes a little evil must be done in order to bring a better but still bitter outcome. Danila Bagrov deservedly became the image of the youth of nineties where the world was unstable, everyone cared only of his own benefit and power, violence and demonstration of force occasionally was the only option available to survive. He has his own principles which often do not correspond with high moral values leaving mixed feelings towards his actions but ultimately he is convinced that he is doing the right things. Life is a difficult thing to balance the consequences of one's action and sometimes a tough choice has to be made - this issue was perfectly displayed in the movie, leaving the viewer not being able to judge or criticize Danila for some of his decisions since most of the people every now and then might feel themselves in Danila's shoes facing a challenging pick. Although Danila charms people with his initially naïve and simple nature at first he is able to become cold-blooded goon, which he proves by the end of the movie where he fulfills his promise to kill Svetlana's abusive husband. Nevertheless, one can see that Danila has a kind and merciful heart - he takes care of Nemets, tries to protect Svetlana who has a Stockholm syndrome towards her offensive husband and eventually forgives his brother Viktor after being betrayed by him.

Overall, the movie is a type of films you love or hate - maybe not as a whole but at least some of its parts. Dealing with the issues of crime, domestic violence, corruption, xenophobia and grayscale of good and evil this film is reasonably considered to be the truthful depiction of the nineties.