The Washington Post's Nora Fitzgerald explains why
Pavel Lungin's The Island, starring Pyotor Mamonov, is the surprise hit of the this year's Russian movie season:
At the Golden Eagle awards last month, "The Island" won in the categories of feature film, director, actor, cinematography, supporting actor and screenplay.
Mamonov's portrayal of Anatoly "is half-acting and half-Mamonov," Lungin said.
The actor is known in Russia for his unexpected appearances and y urodivy, or wise fool, ways. His rambling acceptance speech for his Golden Eagle -- during which he called Putin a "sissy," told Russian women to make babies and worried that his grandchildren would be speaking Chinese -- was yanked off the air by programmers but became a sensation on the Internet.
"The yurodivy speaks out what everyone else thinks and would like to say," said Ivanova, the film critic. "But the freak is the only one who can say it and get away with it."
Lungin, who is working on a biography of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, said the film "was the opposite of mainstream, and then it was accepted by the mainstream. This was absolutely surprising, and it says something about how people are feeling."
More on Mamonov from Wikipedia.
