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The Pacific coast of the Soviet Union: To defend the country against
its enemies (mainly the Japanese), the Soviet leaders have decided to
build Aerograd, pretty much a hub (as you would say today) for
around-the-world airplanes - and of course warplanes. The Japanese don't
like these very much, so they send a couple of Samurai over to their
neighbours, to entice revolt in one small village deep in the taiga - a
revolt that's also supported by this village's spiritual leader. Glushak
(Stepan Shagaida), despite going on 60, is the region's top guide, top
hunter, and he is a passionate Bolshevik - thus he has made it his
personal mission to hunt down the two samurai. One is soon caught and
executed, but the other is hidden by Glushak's old friend Vasili (Stepan
Skurat), whose life he has once saved, and though Glushak suspects him of
harbouring the enemy, he believes his word. However, the Soviet leaders
soon make Glushak the leader of a punitive expedition against Vasili's
village, and when he finds the samurai with his friend Vasili after all,
he has no choice but to shoot him. Vasili takes it like a man though,
while the samurai, surrounded by good Soviet soldiers, tries every trick
in the book to wriggle out of it, but to no avail, he is ultimately handed
over to the authorities. And with the opposition out of the way,
Aerograd can finally be built ... Above all else, Aerograd
is pure, unadulterated propaganda cinema: In this one, everything Soviet
is good, the people, their land, their ambitions. Contrasting that,
everything else is inferior, the Japanese are cowards, religion is the
root of all evil, and so on, and so forth. All of this is captured in
beautiful pictures, including some quite impressive aerial displays, but
when it comes to storytelling, the film is less than special: The actual
narrative invariably takes back seat behind the propaganda message, the
characters are all stereotypes rather than actual persons, and when they
speak, they do so in long, blunt monologues intended to hammer their
messages home and devoid of all subtleties. This all results in afilm
that's quite interesting from a historical perspective of course, but no
matter how you twist and turn it, Aerograd quite simply is not a
good film.
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amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Aerograd at adultvideouniverse.com
