I don't know if anyone noticed that most critical, "one star" reviews emphasize the movie's agenda rather than anything else: the primary object of their critique is not a play by the individual actors, extreme violence or disgusting scenes but director's attitude toward Soviet reality. An they are right. Every small detail in the movie is intended to show that it was indeed rotten and decaying society. The year 1984 was chosen not by the accident: it is the answer to Orwell' book "1984" where British author tried to predict how the communist society would look in 25 years. Balabanov's answer: it is worse than Orwell could even imagine. The letters "USSR" on the T-shirt are not accidental either. This is another Balabanov's answer, this time to the official Soviet literature which presented young people (komsomol)as heroes, ready to sacrifice themselves in defense of their mother-Russia or save little babies from the fire. This real "businessman-komsomolets", who was educated by the Soviet reality, who saw how Soviet officials meet fallen soldiers from Afghanistan, won't do anything like that. Indeed, the movie wants to say that such pervert like captain Zhurov could live anywhere, in any country. However, he could thrive only in USSR, in the country which lost its soul. Great movie.
