Brother

I have to admit that I found myself feeling very surprised during today's film. It was everything that I have been hoping to see during a film in our class. What I mean to say is... this film was full of action, violence, guns, and even some explosions. On top of all of the action rests a story of Danila who, in my opinion, has many characteristics that give him the right to be called a hero. I realize that this is a big statement considering Danila is a gangster. 

Danila gets into the habit of killing for money. I don't think the violent actions are meant to be approved by the audience. However, I do think that he was killing because he was led to believe that he was killing to make St. Petersburg a safer place. I think that he had good intentions and did not realize that he was killing people and that was wrong. It is for this reason that I believe Balabanov (the director) did a good job getting viewers to realize how dangerous St. Petersburg was and how hard it was to live there. The fact that Danila is killing because he wants to make it safer makes him different from other mobsters.

I would like to take just a second to touch on the filming aspect of Brother. Prior to today I had the idea in my head that film techniques in Russia were different than that of American films. Today's film had still camera shots that moved smoothly from one shot to the next unlike most films we have watched. The majority of the movies that we have watched have had camera's that move; it is just that the movements felt rushed which almost gave me an uneasy feeling because my eyes did not have enough time to take in the whole scene as the camera moved across it. This is perhaps what I liked most about the film Brother.