Moskva (2000)
Directed by Aleksandr Zeldovich
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Synopsis by Rebecca Flint Marx
This contemporary look at life in Russia's capital opens with hard-drinking night club owner Irina (Natalia Koliakanova) celebrating the engagement of her daughter Masha (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) to Mike (Alexander Baluev), a businessman gangster and ballet patron. Irina's youngest daughter Olga (Tatiana Drubich) sings atonal songs for the affluent customers of her mother's Western-style club, who are unaware of Olga's past hospitalization for mental problems. Irina busies herself with a psychotherapist (Viktor Gvozditsky), but also takes a fancy to Mike; when Masha catches her fiancé in a clinch with her mother, she merely shrugs it off and becomes besotted with Lev (Stanislav Pavlov), Mike's drug runner. Lev also becomes the object of Olga's affection and treats his admirer to a round of subway sex. Dysfunction, kinky couplings, and gangland-style revenge abound.