Outskirts

A group of Russian farmers discover that their land has been sold for oil excavation without their knowledge and go on a rampage of torture and killing to extract more information from party officials. This grim, phantasmagoric view of recent and not-so-recent Russian history (1998, 95 min.), directed by the late Petr Lutsik, has the same Russian title as Boris Barnet’s first sound film, Okraina, and is showing as part of Facets Cinematheque’s Barnet retrospective, though it has little thematic, stylistic, or formal relation to that masterpiece. Critic Ray Privett’s comparison of the film with Dead Man comes closer to the mark, at least regarding the striking black-and-white cinematography, the slow fade-outs, and the gallows humor about land grabbing and rustic violence. In Russian with subtitles. (JR)

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