You I Love (2004)

This movie has a real Russian feeling in it. The way Russians behave towards each other, the way they treat people and their warmth is something that is not well known for people who has never been there. Definitely the movie is stylized, but if it reminds anything that would be Nine and a Half Weeks. The previous post misses the "invasion" of the "peasant" into the lives of sophisticated urbanites as an attempt to show "how multiracial" Russia has become. It reminds me Bunuel, instead. In L'Age D'or, a movie from the 1920's, there is a scene in which a bunch a peasants pass through an opulent party where the burgeosie is feasting, in a surreal way. It's as like the peasants breath life in that artificial environment. Life, love is all there is.

I really liked this little Russian movie . . . It's about a love triangle: ad exec, anchorwoman, zoo keeper. We get to see an upscale Moscow couple at work and play, and that in itself is interesting, particularly when an attractive and unsophisticated rural guy is thrown into the mix. I particularly liked watching the triangle develop. The simple honesty of the young zoo keeper--an Asian-Russian--as he confronts the big city and the object of his desire, is unlike anything I can recall seeing anywhere else. The schism between urban and rural Russia is apparent when the zoo keeper attempts to grasp the concept of an ATM, and when he is enchanted by the ease of turning an electric lamp on and off. While the gay relationship is not shown in an explicit way, the playfully obtuse suggestions of it are fully erotic and believable. The anchorwoman's struggle to keep her man to herself is clever, and again, believable. There's some melodrama toward the end that is the weakest aspect of the movie. As a plot device, it could have been replaced with something a little more in keeping with the basic concept of the main characters' relationship. Still, it's a plausible story line, and isn't really the main thrust of the movie.This movie put me in mind of Threesome, a seriously neglected American movie that covers similar ground in a similarly honest and refreshing way. They share an authentic depiction of contemporary love with humor and pathos as equal partners.This movie deserves a wider audience, and not just a gay audience.

Innocently playing with modern Moscow's racial diversity (e.g., an African-American executive in an advertisement agency), capitalism (e.g., an overly clichéd CM: "What is Love?" "Love is Cola!"), and, of course, gay romance, You, I Love proves that the Post-Perestroika Russian cinema still remains refreshingly young. MTV-influenced editing and post-pro techniques boast their variety: the fast-paced-slideshow on the first date of Vera (Lyubov Tolkalina) and Tim (Evgeny Koryakovsky), the mixing-reality-and-dream montage on Vera's reflection during her bathing, and the flashback sequence with fast-paced editing and over-exposure on Vera's hallucination during her physical therapy. The appearance of Uloomji (Damir Badmaev) is annoyingly unsophisticated; this casting choice may be due to producing a sense of reality considering his character, but, hey, this is a slick flick whose other two leads are good-looking as if they were movie stars.

This film reminds us of "Sex and the City", but with the city being Russia's capital. Showing us a very stylized Moscow (as "SEX" does with New York), the movie spotlights the private lives of 3 main characters in a modern take of now "liberal" Russia. Two of them have glamorous lives and careers, affording us viewers locations (luxury apartments, offices, bars, and so on) to match; a global, thoroughly Westernized side of Moscow we rarely see on film.The third character is from the Asian part of Russia, throwing in some gritty reminders about how others, especially racial minorities, live in Russia. This character's family, predictably, is more conservative and closed minded than the other more "European" characters. This character and his family also remind the audience of Russia's multi cultural nature.Minor characters inter related to the main three complete the mosaic of modern day Moscow the film paints. Each is a composite of stereotypes -a foreign multi national executive, two senators (the three living similar hedonistic lifestyles), young people with aspiring consumer driven dreams; all but the "Asian Russians" quite capitalistic.While not revealing any particularly novelty, the film is interesting to Westerners as a glossy display of Moscow life, with the stereotypes we read about in the press, and hear about in World News, brought to life on screen.The basic plot however confirms (at least to me) that Moscow is not yet that up to date and permissive. The main relationship formed is a compromise with the conservative reality of Russian morals, and I think not very realistic in any society. One may infer from this film that progressive trendy Muscovites can accept bisexuality, but not real homosexuality. This film makes it clear that it's OK to be gay if you're really bisexual. At least, that's a start for this conservative society. But it is not what (I believe) most of the film's target audiences are expecting to see. In the end, the message the film sends is a cop out.