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A few weeks ago I received a wonderful gift from a good friend here - the Russian film by Karen Shakhnazarov: "The Rider Named Death". Then of course bad thing happened... I put it where I knew I would find it, except my wife happened to be in one of her cleaning moods, so she "organized" everything... all my attempts at finding it ended unsucessfully... until two days ago, when I finally discovered it tucked neatly between many other DVD's! So my appology for this belated response!
Last night we finally watched it.
I am sure most people here never heard of that director, and jumping a bit forward I think his best film would be Gorod Zero, apparently not available in the US.
The Rider IS available, and I think it warrants a look, as it is sufficiently different from most of the stuff floating around today.
The Rider is one of the films where the familiarity with the subject makes the viewing so much more rewarding and even clearer, so I would strongly recommend anyone undertaking this task to read on Boris Saviknov and his hopeless fight against the bolshevism.
Overall I would rate the Rider as a mesmerizing, almost hypnotic movie, but perhaps unfinished. Not in the sense that the director missed the chance to say all he wanted, more that he had plenty of emotions but was not sure himself what they all meant and what had to be said. In that sense it is his search, the search that does not produce any palpable results, but with plenty of good observations along the way.
The film is elegant and beatifully done, with wonderful period settings and atmosphere, the visual sensation it produces is thick and satisfying, without being overbearing.
The lead actor is well known in Russia and creates good character with depth and doubts. Call him contraversial, if you like the cliche's, for he is.
The director jumps from episode to episode in his heavenly dance, like a balerina, not touching the floor, and the result is a dreamlike sequence that is nonetheless firmly rooted in historic reality which that you can't escape.
Political idealism, terrorism, doubts, intellectually justified cruelty and murder, supressed human emotions and betrayal all are there in that one man, and you can feel him struggle under that enormous load... and that struggle was to become the story of his life, the life that eventually had to end on the cobblestone of the NKVD Lubianka jail.
Terrorism rightly occupies our minds today, so here is my innocent Trojan Horse - use that as a reason to see the film. It is bound to produce emotions and stimulate thoughts. If you are attuned to aestheticism and appreciation of beauty, you will also find it enjoyable.
Not a great film in the simplistic sense of that word, but a wonderful trip back in time, the time that has great relevancy to modern events.

Films/DVD Asylum

"The Rider Named Death", and my apology to a friend!