An RTR clip (in Russian) about Balabanov's film, complete with English translation of some scenes

The plot is simple - in the year 1984, in a fictional and dirty Soviet factory town called Leninsk, Artyom (Leonid Gromov), a professor of "scientific atheism" from Leningrad, finds himself stuck on the side of the road after his Lada breaks down. A North Vietnamese laborer and a dirt poor collective farmer offer him shelter, but Artyom, as a representative of the Communist Party, is immediately confronted by his host, Alexei (Alexei Serebryakov, who played a Red Army intelligence officer in 9 Rota), with a barrage of questions, marinated by cheap vodka:

"So Artyom, that means that there is no God or soul, but there's consciousness and material. Where then did consciousness come from, for example?"

"Alexei, this is pointless. There's Darwin's theory, it's taught in schools."

"I'm to believe that a monkey raised a stick, and abstract thought appeared? Let's drink."

"No, I cannot, I have to get to Leninsk."

"How?" (akward silence, while Artyom considers his broken down car sitting in the dark)

"Alright, I'll be off."

"Hang on! Don't offend the hosts. We've opened our souls to you, even though you don't have one."

While Artyom is getting drunk with Alexei, Angelika (Agniya Kuznetsova), the pretty teenage daughter of a local Communist Party boss who is engaged to a sergeant in Afghanistan, is making out at the Leninsk discoteque with Valeria, a teenage boy who sports a USSR t-shirt and a bad hair cut. Valeria (Leonid Bichevin) puts his Lada in gear and decides to take Angelika out to the countryside to try and take advantage of her. But when Valeria goes into Aleksey's cabin to drink some more, Angelika is left outside, alone and scared in the dark.

Scenes from a teenage Soviet disco, cerca 1984. Notice the kids doing "The Robot"

Out of the darkness steps police Captain Zhurov (Aleksei Poluyan), a wraith peering into the windows of the car and the house. Angelika tries to find shelter with the collective farmer Alexei's wife, Antonina (Natalya Akimova). However, in spite of Angelika's pleas for help, Antonina locks Angelika up in a shed for the night - either to protect her from her drunk husband, or due to her resentment of Angelika's father. Nonetheless, Captain Zhurov finds Angelika, and to her horror, shoots the old Vietnamese man when he steps in to protest Zhurov's behavior. What follows is a collection of brutal scenes, punctuated by Soviet pop music and the local militsa getting fooled by one of their own gone mad. While Zhurov is totally perverted and depraved, his fellow cops are everyday sadists, who enjoy beating prisoners and shooting Alexei in the back of the head.

One particularly poignant scene shows Soviet soldiers unloading a coffin from a transport plane as the dead man's paratrooper comrades rush onto the jet for their turn in Afghanistan. Young Russians who have listened to the popular group Ryukhi Verkh (Hands Up) will recognize a familiar tune from a Soviet children's show. The movie's climax, involving the helpless Angelika, the body of her dead boyfriend who was killed in Afghanistan, a tattoed criminal, Captain Zhurov's senile mother, and Antonina armed with a shotgun out for revenge, are too vile to be described here. Suffice to say, the movie's closing moments offer only a small glimmer of hope, with Artyom praying among the icons and candles of a Russian Orthodox Church.The film's running time is then mercifully cut short, with Valeria partying in Leningrad.

Certainly, some viewers of this film will come away unimpressed. Every society in history, after all, has produced pyschopaths, and mass murderers existed long before officially atheist regimes sought to displace God from human affairs in the 20th century. Others would question Balabanov choosing to close his film with a scene in a Russian Orthodox Church. In recent months, articles in The New York Times (you can read some reader comments critical of the NYT here) and other Western media outlets have depicted Russia as backsliding towards a one-party state, where only one official state religion is permitted.

Instead of atheistic scientific socialism, we are told, Russian Orthodoxy is now the faith of the Kremlin and the State, and there is no freedom for Protestants and Catholics in Russia. We are told this even as empty headed commentators like MSNBC's Glenn Beck insist with a straight face that "Putin is building hundreds of mosques across Russia" while imposing a Russian Orthodox dictatorship on the rest of Russia's non-Muslim population. In reality, regardless of Russian Orthodox leaders' highly publicized fears about "proselytzing by foreign sects", Russia remains more open to foreigners and previously foreign beliefs than at any time in its thousand year history. Besides Islam, Buddhism is one of the fastest growing religions in the Russian Federation.

Films like Balabanov's (and those of his more popular contemporary, Fyodor Bondarchuk) are part of Russia's very real process of "coming to grips" with the pain of its Soviet past. Nonetheless, for many of Russia's critics in the West, after 1990, anything less than treating the Russian people as a totally defeated nation subject to rehabilitation, as America did to the Germans and Japanese after World War II, will always be inadequate. Even as they claim that Russians have never adequately repented for their personal past or even the sins of their fathers, these critics usually overlook examples from contemporary Russian society where the Soviet past is depicted as, at different times, absurd, backward, or illusory.

A critic once said that horror films, of all types of cinema, do the most to reveal spiritual truth to an audience. In this sense, Balabanov's film serves its intended purpose, although its graphic and disturbing content cannot be regarded as recommended viewing for anyone.

Film
Gruz 200 (Cargo 200)

Director/Screenplay:
Алексей Балабанов Aleksei Balabanov

Cast
Агния Кузнецова Agniya Kuznetsova - Angelika
Алексей Полуян Aleksey Poluyan - Captain Zhurov
Леонид Громов Leonid Gromov - Artyom, Professor of Scientific Atheism
Алексей Серебряков Alexei Serebryakov - Alexei (the farmer)
Леонид Бичевин Leonid Bichevin - Valeria (Angelika's date)
Наталья Акимова Natalya Akimova - Antonina (Alexei's wife)
Юрий Степанов Yuri Stepanov - Mikhail, the Colonel