THE WILD EAST

English Title: THE WILD EAST

“Long, long ago in the late 20th century..” Rashid Nougmanov's new movie announces itself as a contemporary fairy tale, no doubt seasoned with political allegory. But THE WILD EAST is easy to enjoy simply as a wierd and wonderul genre hybrid: sort of “Mad Max” and “The Seven Samurai” meet “Alexander Nevsky” and Kazakh rock culture in a leather boutique. The Solar Children, a tribe of dwarfs who left the circus when the war began, are trying to turn their desert settlement into a garden. But their will is ebbing, and they're under sige from a gange of bikers led by the Grim Reaper. Iona of the Solar Children goes forth in search of a defender, and comes back with a rag-tag bunch of mercenaries, adventurers, and crazies. You can guess more or less what happens, but you'll be surprised by some to the twists and turns, you'll take guilty pleasure in some of the violence and fetishism, and you'll be touched by the power of these old/new myths to prickle the scalp and make the heart beat that little bit faster.-In Russian with English subtitles.-Vancouver Film Festival.