On May 15, the online premiere of the action comedy "Tear Off and Throw Away" with Anna Mikhalkova and Alexander Yatsenko will take place on KION. Director Kirill Sokolov surprised viewers and critics with his debut "Dad, Die!", and this time he cont...
How can one characterize "Tear Off and Throw Away"? 100% a film by Kirill Sokolov. But what does that mean?
The Russian film "Dad, Die!" released in 2018 reached a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Western critics compared it to the works of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino. And this film was directed by Kirill Sokolov, who went virtually unnoticed in his homeland.
Naturally, after such reception in the West, the director's new work attracted much more attention from the domestic press and audiences. But even such keen interest from the audience did not prevent Sokolov from doing what he does best — telling a simple story in a sharp and metaphorical way, where bullets and knives replace words (which hurts more — a big question), and the characters are ready to endure what even superheroes could not imagine. And you know, this already looks like the signature style of, at the very least, an interesting filmmaker.
A Road Movie with an Engine of Ultra-Violence
A young woman named Olya (Viktoria Korotkova) gets out of prison with one desire — to take her daughter Masha (debutante Sonya Kruglova) from her mother and move in with a man she has been corresponding with. However, not only Masha's grandmother (unexpectedly brutal Anna Mikhalkova) opposes this, but also Olya's former partner Oleg (characteristically charismatic Alexander Yatsenko), a policeman because of whom the girl ended up behind bars.
From the first meeting of the characters, where one of the women leaves with a knife wound, to the false happy ending, Kirill Sokolov in "Tear Off and Throw Away" wittily dissects family relationships. At the same time, he never descends into the typical Russian "intellectual" cinema, never forgetting that his film is meant to entertain. Therefore, the characters will lose liters of blood but get up and move on, they will get into accidents, they will drown, but still continue their journey.
Gloomy Comicality
The ultra-violence offered by the young author is needed to add lightness to the dark themes hidden under the guise of a comedic blockbuster. You don't need to be a genius to see behind all this a critique of the social environment where domestic violence is not something shameful, even if it's not about physical injuries but psychological trauma, even if a man is not involved (it's no coincidence that the key characters here are precisely the heroines).
Kirill Sokolov's cruel irony manifests itself not even in the main storyline of "Tear Off and Throw Away," but in how he contrasts an outwardly completely dysfunctional family with a more traditional social unit. Hereditary prison guards (the matriarch played by Olga Lapshina, her dim-witted son played by Danil Steklov, and the father portrayed by Vitaly Khaev, the same "dad" from Sokolov's debut), whose lives are scheduled from start to finish, each with their own clear role, and the harmony within this system can even evoke shameful admiration.
It is in this family that the most important conversation of the entire story takes place, when the mother, of her own free will, wants to "tear off and throw away" her offspring, sending him into free flight on the path to a different, not so "vile" life. The conclusion offered by the author looks all the funnier and at the same time more tragic. The more closed the system and the more bonds it has, the less chance there is to break this vicious circle.
Is "Tear Off and Throw Away" Worth Watching?
Kirill Sokolov's second film turned out to be more cohesive and plot-oriented than his debut. It maintains a more harmonious balance between flashy and daring visuals and narrative (the imagery still grabs attention and stands out against the backdrop of Russian mainstream cinema, but now the semantic content is also up to par). Therefore, despite the common themes and the director's already recognizable style, "Tear Off and Throw Away" is a step forward for the author, whom we will be closely watching in the coming years, and we recommend you do the same.
"Tear Off and Throw Away" from May 15 on the KION online cinema.
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