Doroga na (Road to) by Taisia Igumentseva

The short film Road to by Russian director Taisia Igumentseva takes a comic look onto the small world of the individual. The protagonist Serjoza is the ultimate loser, having a job at one of those stores that will sell you anything from eggshells to electronic-massage devices. Serjoza feels like many people: that he has to take a back row seat in life. Portraying the context of an anonymous Russian city littered with thousands of Soviet-panel houses, the director has also chosen to raise the pathetic stakes to the maximum. Renting a room from a lonely widower, Serjoza’s life is a grotesque series of failures, the only life advice comes from a guy who uses urine to cure physical traumas. There is one thing that Serjoza has in his life that gives him back some power. Coward as he is, he dresses up and goes to open courtyards at night to yell obscenities at the anonymous people living there. Even so, the swear words he chooses are not the strongest kind and to the crooks who regularly beat him up for shouting, the words ’shit’ and ’fag’ hardly make an impression. But then there is Vera, a typical vain Russian girl full of ideals and hopes who works with Serjoza in the store and actually likes him. A series of slapstick situations follows and the two losers find each other in a happy ending. It is a mixture of attempts difficult to rate, as it has a student flavour to it from the execution (realistic documentary style + elements of grotesque) to the empty storyline and it is hard to comment on the social relevance of a its critical message when it is this warm and (trying to be) funny in its approach. In that way it is a "road to" nowhere.

by Greta Varts (Estonia)