Documentarian Sergei Loznitsa makes an audacious and impressive feature debut with this labyrinthine journey deep into the literal and metaphorical back roads of Russia. “Arresting and powerful.” — London Film Festival
Arresting and powerful... A chance encounter leads to a nightmare journey into a Russian heart of darkness.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2011
My Joy 2010
Schastye moye
This audacious and impressive feature debut from documentarian Sergei Loznitsa (Blockade, Revue NZIFF08) takes us on a Kafkaesque journey deep into the literal and metaphorical back roads of darkest Russia, complete with several somewhat Buñuelian diversions. Connoisseurs of Russian cinema may well intuit that the title is deeply ironic, and it is. — MM
“My Joy is filmed with a documentary-maker’s eye – it’s based on true stories – but it’s also a horror story of living ghosts, a portrait of the old weird Russia in which bad luck rules and is passed on by stories, for instance, told to truck driver Georgy by a mysterious old man about his return to Russia after World War II and the chance encounter that destroyed his life. The film’s constantly surprising labyrinthine structure, modelled, according to the director, on the bizarre tree-like structure of the Russian road system… [makes] this a powerfully antirealist film.” — Jonathan Romney, Sight & Sound