The three things the creators of this horror wanted to do were: <br /><br />(1) Photograph lots of beautiful scenery, treating the big screen as a monstrous canvas for near-still photography merging into visual art;<br /><br />(2) Set it all to avant-garde classical music performed with electronic instruments;<br /><br />(3) Show the mindless brutality and degeneration that they believe to be the Russian psyche.<br /><br />(1) and (2) are self-evident at first glance. They're also quite secondary.<br /><br />And (3)? Well, how else to characterize a movie the plot of which is as follows: semi-degenerate-looking man goes crazy, then tries to seduce a cheaply country-erotic woman; fully degenerate husband of country-erotic woman cuts off finger of girl bitten by dog; neighbors take girl away; woman runs off with man, has wild sex in fresh air; husband burns empty house down to the ground, takes shotgun, shoots cow, shoots man and woman.<br /><br />Oh yes, and in between somewhere for no reason other than (3) otherwise apparent is a scene of a few degenerates partying away that ends with a woman stabbing someone in the chest with a fork.<br /><br />And let's not forget the degenerate-looking mental subnormal that drools as he rides his motorcycle, in scene after scene.<br /><br />Hell, perhaps there's more to the movie than (3).<br /><br />What it is, I don't know.<br /><br />But especially in light of (1) and (2), though, whatever it is, it is stinkily obscene.