KILLER

“At certain periods a whole generation is faced with two models: it forgets its traditions, losing its defenses and its innocence” – that quote from Hermann Hesse opens this gravely inarguable drama, worthy of comparison to the classic moral scenarios of Robert Bresson. Aseemingly minor auto accident touches off a fateful spiral of calamities for Marat, a young husband and new father in modern Kazakhstan. A driver for a prominent scientist, he requires a good car to keep his small family secure. But there is a new mood, a different “model” in the former USSR. Where once a case like Marat's would be hadnled by the State, it is now every man for himself. Marat finds himself beaten, robbed, and sunk deep in debt to a local loan shark associated with the only force left that commands respect in the emerging free-market territories: the Mob. If he performs a certain serice for his ruthless creditors, Marat will be absolved. It's an offer he can't refuse. Point-blank, uncluttered, and documentary certain of its convictions, KILLER will leave viewers forever marked by its portrait of a misled society where human life is just another commodity to be bought, sold, and taken away. (In Kazakh with English subtitles)