An Exercise In Nonsense

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Very powerful mix of docu-drama like realism and somewhat surreal and nightmarish tones in this exploration of what happened in the days around and following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. The choice to switch back and forth between a more literal objective point-of-view, and a more subjective and dream-like one would seem to be a recipe for confusion and problematic storytelling, but in practice director and co-writer Mikhail Belikov pulls it off beautifully, creating a deeply disturbing portrait of a moment when things really went to hell, and no one knew just how bad it would be, all the while the government was desperately trying to deny that anything much was even really wrong. Our main character is a very Russian anti-hero; a heavy drinking journalist who wants to uncover the truth, but is motivated by many different things, noble and not. The acting is a bit of a mixed bag, and some of the visual and physical effects show their age and lack of budget, but none of that detracts much from the claustrophobic sense of being inside someone else's nightmare. Worth seeking out, and a shame it's so hard to find.

Raspad is an exciting and anguishing movie to watch and to be part of. The chaos and hysteria depicted in the film draws the viewer into the movie and he/she experience the panic and horror experienced by the residents of the immediate area where the reactor exploded and how it effected all the areas around it, far and wide. It continues to show life after the melt down and what people did, what they were told to do, when no one really knew what to do, how they tried to cope with the knowledge that they may be irreparably damaged and would shortly die, and how in a film noir sort of way they became crazed and made themselves laugh, party, drink hard, sing sad songs, dance, make love and over indulge because it was their last days on earth. It shows how society collapsed because of eminent doom. I had the privilege of working on the project with the generous members of the Pacific Film Fund and with the director, Michael Belikov, when he was brought to the United States for post production through generous donations of concerned citizens against nuclear proliferation, so that Mr. Belikov could complete his very important film project. Though the emotional gravity sometimes gets lost in the translation of mere words spoken by actors, the energy that the film projects about this topic is immediately understood. I did the subtitles for the movie and I'm sure it wasn't enough, words are sometimes limiting, so I encourage the viewer, the audience, to read through the lines, not just between, and to feel what millions must have felt when they learned of their eminent doom and how they've had to live with the changes in nature, in their health, and in their lives since that accident.

Raspad is indeed a grim view of the Chernobyl meltdown in Pripyat, and follows a few characters through their trek to the site of the disaster.However it's a comedy, if a deep, black one. There are many threads of humor, more than a few I don't really get (but clearly detectable as cultural references, mainly the hilariously irritating folk singer) but some are pure slapstick -- the opening scene, a man awakens in bed, reaches for his glass of water... complete with false teeth; idle chat in a taxi, man falls of a high crane in the background (EEEEEEEeeeeyaaaahhh....); hamming it up for photos at the site of the meltdown...It's a GREAT movie. With subject matter this grim how else could it be handled? As an added bonus, it was the movie my partner and I saw on our first date, 12 years ago, when we were the only ones laughing.

April 1986, Chernobyl, Ukraine. The movie sets off that the meltdown of reactor 4 of the Chernobyl-disaster. Yet everything deals with this catastrophe, it is not the main plot of this well made movie of soviet times. The main plot is about how those few minutes, even seconds, effects the life off so many people in a tragic way. The movie shows the tragic story of a view characters, and how they act during those dramatic days, and how there life will continue, in the worst case end. This movie leaves open the ends of many stories, yet it should be hard to draw your own end.This movie is definitely interesting for anyone who is interested in history, nuclear power or especially in the Chernobyl-catastrophe. This movie is nothing for weak nerves, no happy end should be expected. For anyone who wants to find out more about the way Chernobyl effected the life of many people after April ´86 I would strongly recommend this movie. It is not complicated and also technical details are only set in the backround. In the end you get a nice overview over the incident itself and the following days.