Roedy Green 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.

Cinish Narayanan 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.

paulouscan A very refreshing scenario, for children as well as grown-ups, out of a rare realization build-up. Marvelous interpretation of the kind. The direction is a topmost in buffoonery and lightness in the gags. The message is a simple tale, but it makes it possible to run through most of essential human relationships. To be seen, absolutely. A gem, a jewel. It is one of the first Turkish movie I have ever seen but it is definitely worth seeing. It reminds me of old Italian movie making in the fifties, but with a much higher emotional tone, much less seriousness. Of course some of the scenes would need some better physics to make more sense or be more realistic, but this is absolutely not the purpose of the film. It relies on absurdity to make us feel totally enjoyed with the message.

gradyharp Remember 'Lysistrata' written by Aristophanes in 411 BC, a comedy of 'one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War. Lysistrata convinces the women of Greece to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace, a strategy however that inflames the battle between the sexes. The play is notable for its exposé of sexual relations in a male-dominated society and for its use of both double entendre and explicit obscenities'? Writer/director Veit Helmer (with co- writers Gordon Mihic and Zaza Buadze) have very successfully updated this tale, bathed it in magical realism and fantasy, placed it somewhere along the Silk Road in the mountains where no one would want to live, and have called it ABSURDISTAN. This is one of those films that very thankfully requires us to surrender the need for realism and substitute the pleasure of laughing and spend a comfortable hour and a half of parody of current sexism and the rich treasures of old movies, bawdy silliness, and the magic of love. For this viewer it works on every level - thanks in part to the imaginative cinematography of Giorgi Beridze and the charm of Shigeru Umebayashi's musical score. Absurdistan has a problem: the water supply that comes from a complex well system in the mountains outside the town has diminished to a trickle. The men of the town ignore their wives' complaints, preferring instead to gather daily in the local teahouse, leaving the women to not only tend to their homes but also finish the work of the men. A significant diverting part of this community is a young couple who have been in love since childhood, married in a mock ceremony at age 8, matured to teenagers- Aya (Kristyna Malérová) and Temelko (Maximilian Mauf) - but warned by the girl's grandmother (Nino Chkheidze) that they may not consummate their union until the stars are in alignment in four years! Temelko has spent his youth inventing things, not exactly in the mold of the other men of the village. He and Aya believe that their sexual union will give Aya the ability to fly, and Temelko intends to keep that concept viable. The young men of Absurdistan, Temelko among them, are bused off to some city where they are to learn how to fix the water shortage. While they are gone the women, much due to Aya's leadership decide that in order to force the lazy men to work on the problem, they will withhold conjugal obligations: no water, no sex. The bus returns -empty - and only Temelko comes back to the village because of Aya. The silly men decide to avoid being dominated by the women's rule and try multiple ways to find satisfaction, first by attempting to leave town to go gallivanting into the city (aborted by the wives), then to invite a carnival shooting gallery into the town - the prize being a night with the shooting gallery owner's (Ivane Ivantbelidze) daughter (Ani Amiridze). Naturally the one who can successfully hit the target is Temelko, and while Aya believes Temelko will sacrifice his conjugal initiation, he instead devises inventions that entertain Aya and eventually he is able to solve the water problem. And as promised, with the entire village celebrating restored physical bliss, Temelko sets off a fantastical machine that allows Aya to fly - and return, thrilled, back to his arms. Though this film is directed by the fine German director Veit Helmer, the feeling is entirely that of Russian folklore. The actors selected for the villagers have the most interesting faces and bodies imaginable and the exuberance of their acting is infectious. The reference to the history of the town (often tying in to old movies) is photographed like scratchy old film, and the active story itself is in rapturously beautiful color. The film's story is basically voice over (in Russian), except for Aya's protestations. This is a fable, a fairytale, and a pure escapist delight of a film. It would be difficult not to fall under its spell. Grady Harp