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Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(April 2009)

Directed/Written by: Slava Tsukerman
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Sam Robards, Oksana Stashenko, Jicky Schnee, Maria Andreyeva and Ally Sheedy

Spring, 1992. Moscow is in turmoil. An astrophysicist, Sasha Greenberg, returns to his homeland after more than a decade in the United States. Back in the place of his childhood, familiar and unfamiliar with the city he left behind, he not only reminisces but also reintroduces himself to the string of women he left behind.

Shot like a student film – hyper-real colors, lights flared, a wide array of angles – Perestroika begins with a brisk-paced narration with cut-aways and flashbacks to the events being intoned. As the movie progresses, it chops and changes from the story to stock space footage and animated astrophysics, and ambles on to examining a litany of human relationships. Tsukerman bathes each and all elements in a variety of inconsistent accents, colors and broken black-&-whites.

The hyper-reality may be interpreted as purposed to give force to the lack of clarity that followed the downfall of Communism and with Boris Yeltsin’s election as president of Russia, replacing a then-legendary (but largely now-forgotten) Mikhail Gorbachev. Or the talky, trance-like transitions may be seen to, distractingly or deftly, detour the audience from any clear sense of story.

Ambitious in its energy – pondering life’s biggest philosophical and astrological questions largely through on-the-nose exposition – Tsukerman’s strategy seems to have served only to confuse this audience member. While the director’s much-lauded feature Liquid Sky showed promise and poise, Perestroika might have been too close to Tsukerman’s own upbringing to afford him the objective distance often demanded by this medium. -MPM

For showtimes, go to www.perestroikathemovie.com.