Let’s hear it for animated sci-fi comedy from the Russia. Anyone? Ku! Kin-dza-dza is a strange film whichever way you slice it, starting with its title, and the fact that it’s a remake of a live-action movie from 1986, also made by Georgiy Daneliya (here directing alongside Tatyana Ilina), who decided in 2013 that he needed to take a second tour of the territory, what with the Iron Curtain having fallen in the interim.
Out went a good chunk of the satire and the darkness, though the kookiness remains in his story of a snobbish cellist and his streetwise nephew who are accidentally transported from wintry Russia to an alien world where status is decided by the colour of your trousers, everyone breaks down into mutually antagonistic racial groups and the police are always on the take and not to be trifled with.
Pluke is a bright Sergio Leone desert planet of vast expanses and dusty vistas, where Vladimir Chizhov (voiced by Nikolay Gubenko) and his teenage companion Tolik (Ivan Tsehmistrenko) wander, attempting to make sense of a world of flying trash cans, humanoid animals and the relentless emphasis on transactional relationships – if you’ve got something worth having then you’re worth something too.
The steampunk vibe is somewhere between Mad Max and The Wizard of Oz, with perhaps a bit of Terry Gilliam absurdity and Hayao Miyazaki whimsicality in the mix, and with its emphasis on old broken-down technology Daneliya appears to be tilting towards a representation of post-Soviet collapse, both literally and psychologically.
Kin-dza-dza was the title of the original 1986 movie. The “Ku!” bit comes from the word the locals commence most sentence with. Since these sentences also consist of the word Ku, more often than not, it’s a word that does a lot of work, though the aliens do also seem to be able to understand Russian, possibly via telepathy. In what appears to be half a stab at repurposing Anthony Burgess’s Nadsat – the language spoken in A Clockwork Orange – the police are referred to as “ecilop” (police backwards), “gravitsappa” (which allows intergalactic travel) is in short supply and everyone is either a patsak (high status) or a chatlanian (low status). And watch out for that tranklucator (a weapon).
“What is it all for?” is a question that popped into my head, along with “who is it for?”. There is a haphazard, ramshackle aspect to the whole thing, and its “one damn thing after another” plot doesn’t exactly stoke the drama. If there is jeopardy it is soon dissipated, as Chizhov and Tolik bumble from one potentially disastrous situation to another until, Oz-style, it’s time for them to go back home.
The animation style is hand-drawn grungey Scooby Doo and it’s frequently charming, with the occasional moment of humour to stave off the doubts as to the wisdom of the enterprise. This was Daneliya’s last movie and he was in his 80s when he made it. A lifetime of comedies that tested the Soviet censor was also marked by movies that referred back to Daneliya’s own work. So in a sense Ku! Kin-dza-dza is a case of more of the same rather than a decisive departure.
To use a damning adjective, it’s “nice”. It’s a good-looking, occasionally funny adventure set on a world that’s well realised and populated by odd creatures who are charming enough, though with not enough danger or darkness to generate any real tension. A strange one-off, or it would be if the live action original didn’t exist too, but that justifited its existence as a commentary on a socialist system expecting, if not demanding, that people change to fit in with different circumstances. Ku! Kin-dza-dza doesn’t have that totalising worldview to push back against. Where’s Leonid Brezhnev when you need him?
Ku! Kin-dza-dza – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2023
