The characters in this film are hideous, dirty, obese, malodorous and unkempt. The hero is a handsome gangly teenage boy. He is in love with a pretty, tomboyish but cruel young lady. The elders behave like characters in a Benny Hill movie. They pantomime extreme sexual attraction to each other, and spend a lot of time in non-consensual sex. The village breaks out into Lysistrata like war between the sexes over the male refusal to repair the water supply. They shoot each other. They lay vicious traps of various kinds for each other. Everyone sleeps with rifles and sets them off by accident repeatedly. I did not find this amusing. These people were psychopaths. At the end, boy gets girl, though I was not too happy about this. She had repeatedly abused him so badly, I hoped for a new love for him.

I had picked up this one just because I did not have time to choose one and just pulled whatever I could get my hands on. What I was looking forward was absurdities like in Borat. Yes , there were lot of absurdities in the movie. The theme is about women denying sex till the men solve the water problem in the village. It was light watching for most, however towards the end of the movie , the movie completed it's story and that too pretty well.A pipeline that brings water to the village has a missing piece. When the pipe is fixed, the water comes but the man who fixes it would fall into the water and drown. This is solved by tipping a huge rock that blocks the water. A light fun movie.

German director/writer,Veit Helmer's films are an acquired taste (much like Canada's Guy Maddin). His style of directing seems to lean toward the mainly visual (there is little to no dialog in his films),and in metaphorical terms,has a tendency to (at times)resemble some of the films of Czech film makers,Jiri Menzil,etc. In this gentle fable,'Absurdistan',the story takes place in the fictional village of Absurdistan,somewhere in a part of Russia that seems to have been forgotten by time (it's not supposed to be listed on any map),but still exists,none the less. Aya & Temelko are two young people who have been in love with one another since childhood. Aya's fortune telling grandmother predicts that the two should get together when two star signs merge. Sound simple enough? There is a problem in the village with the water supply (and the lazy,good for nothing men,who are content with just hanging out in the local teahouse all day while their women do all the work,including the work projects that the men start,but never seem to finish). When things get downright dire,what with the nearly total lack of water,the women stage a sex strike ultimatum on the men. It's up to Temelko to try & fix the water problem, so he can be with his beloved Aya forever. Veit Helmer directs & co-writes the screenplay (with the assistance of Zaza Buadze,Gordan Mihic & Ahmet Golbol). The cinematography by George Beridze makes nice use of what appears to be a arid,near desert environment. The cast is made up of mainly Russian actors who do their job well. If you enjoyed Helmer's film, 'Tuvalu' from a few years back, this will be another feather in your conical cap. Spoken (what little on screen dialog,outside of the narrative structure)in Russian with English subtitles. No MPAA rating,but contains flashes of nudity & sexual content.

This feature was filmed in Azerbaijan. This is remarkable since the main theme of the story involves sex, and in a Muslim country, this type of movie is definitely frowned upon. The story surrounds a young couple, Ava and Temelko. They are madly in love and have been told by her fortune-telling grandmother the night they may consummate their relationship. However, before the special night arrives, they run into problems as the lazy men of the town they inhabit have not performed any maintenance on the town's water pipes and they have broken. The women are fed up with having to do without water and go on "strike"...no water, no sex. The movie reminds me a little of "The Gods Must Be Crazy;" silly and slapstick humor along with a little more subtle humor underneath. The performances of Kristyna Malerova and Max Mauff were sympathetic and amusing.To the reviewer below, I got my "facts" from the director of the film at the screening I attended...I was just repeating what I heard. I took the man (and the others involved in the film who agreed with him) at his word, and I think you are taking this commentary just a tad too seriously.