- Actors: Sergey Makovetskiy, Dinara Drukarova, Anzhelika Nevolina, Viktor Sukhorukov, Alyosha Dyo
- Directors: Aleksey Balabanov
- Writers: Aleksey Balabanov
- Producers: Oleg Botogov, Sergei Chliyants, Sergei Selyanov
- Language Russian
- Classification: 18
- Studio: Tartan
- VHS Release Date: 1 Oct 1999
- Run Time: 93 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004Y3MH
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 19,472 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Product Description
From the Back Cover
Johann, darkly handsome and manipulative, is a turn of the 20th Century St. Petersburg pornographer, peddling images of bare-bottomed floggings. He and his snaggle-toothed assistant Victor, worm their way into the live of two wealthy families, manipulating adopted Siamese twins Kolja and Tolja and the delicately beautiful Lisa as subjects for his erotic films. Filmed in sepia tone, Of Freaks And Men is visually rich with a crackling, eerie soundtrack. It lays bare a preoccupation with sexuality welling beneath the austere trappings of the Russian bourgeoisie and provides an enticing and thrilling tale.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dreamlike tale of turn of the century S&M film industry,
By A Customer
This review is from: Of Freaks and Men (Subtitled) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Alexei Balabanov is a director from whom you can certainly never know what to expect next. Having had two monster successes in Russia with the taut gangster thrillers Brat (Brother) and Brat 2, the director then turned to a most unusual story indeed: the beginning of the Russian porn industry. But it's not a thriller, oh no, 'Of Freaks and Men' is a dreamlike lyrical film set in a marvellous sepia-hued St Petersburg. A local gangster, suffering from his own version of angst and some kind of oedipal longings, and his cohort invade the lives of two respectable families, including a blind matriarch and Siamese twins, forcing them to participate in 'spanking'movies. A kind of dream of turn of the century Russia is brilliantly evoked in the autumnal light, as the characters move silently through the deserted city on canal boats, horrible threat and aching beauty alternating with each other constantly. Of course, under Communism, porn was absolutely outlawed; with the fall of the Red Power, it's everywhere. Balabanov's fantasy story takes the sleaze out of porn and examinesit in terms of the psychological states of the characters involved. By the way, once you see this film you will want to visit St Petersburg - I did!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
worth watching!,
By
This review is from: Of Freaks And Men [DVD] [1998] (DVD)
I'm really glad I watched this film - its dark, Dostoyevskian, packed chockful with symbolism and layers of meaning - hence the very long review contained in the 'extra features' section (which is worth reading and cribbing from in case you are a media studies student!). The film seems to be about exploitation, travel, the history of cinema, industrialisation - but aside from all this cerebral stuff - its a sheer, unthinking, joy to watch and listen to. The sequence with the steam boat going down the river, belching smoke - the man in front with flowers -accompanied by that luscious Mussorgsky music is about the best thing I can ever remember seeing in cinema - I couldn't stop myself re-playing the scene over and over on my DVD player. Nice simple Russian too - a GCSE student could follow little chunks of it I think. I recommend renting it though - who pays 20 pounds for a DVD nowadays?
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The idea is better than the whole,
By
This review is from: Of Freaks And Men [DVD] [1998] (DVD)
This is one of those films that you like thinking about afterwards but sit there bored through. The way it is filmed is excellent- in sepia with intertitles and the story is quite interesting but it is very slow. even though it is little more than 90 minutes long it feels longer and this detracts from the overall effect. I saw it at the cinema originally and it caused a lot of discussion but as a viewing experience you only need to see it once.
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