beware the piranha
The essence of kitsch is when an object is so fragrantly tasteless it acquires a kind of beauty. Aesthetics is a continuum, and there is a nexus where beauty and ugliness meet.
TEXT FRANCIS MERSON feedback
The essence of kitsch is when an object is so fragrantly tasteless it acquires a kind of beauty. Aesthetics is a continuum, and there is a nexus where beauty and ugliness meet. Director Andrei Kavchun has located this point masterfully in his first-ever feature, “Okhota Na Piranyu” (Piranha Hunt) — a movie so gruesome, violent and derivative that it verges on the sublime. The first half-hour of the movie has you fearing the worst. Cliche follows cliche as we are introduced to the smooth-talking Special Forces hero (Vladimir Mashkov), the psychotic bleached-blond evil villain (Yevgeny Mironov) and a world-threatening chemical substance, which is, of course, fluorescent green. An hour later, all these cliches reach a sort of critical mass, and you begin to suspect a tongue firmly planted in cheek. The commonplaces of the action genre become gradually more and more ridiculous, until the hero of the piece, as though conscious of his generically-determined invincibility, strolls into the lair of the bad guys andkills everybody in the space of a minute, all the while yawning and humming a little tune to himself. This is genre parody of the most potent and unexpected kind — bold, postmodern cinema. Such a striking absence of original ideas, characters or plot can be no accident. Or can it? Perhaps the film-makers themselves don’t know what a gem of highbrow art they have created. On a more practical note, it must be mentioned that film is not for the squeamish, as Kavchun spared no expense in providing close-ups of supturating wounds and other such voyeuristic delights. All this makes “Okhota Na Piranyu” the perfect movie to invite a girl to, as she will be sure to bury her head in your manly shoulder when Mironov finally gets his come-uppance in the form of a wooden spike through the head. Then again, she may just throw up. |
