Kin-Dza-Dza! (Blu-ray)

http://www.renaud-bray.com

http://www.renaud-bray.com

*** Résumé en anglais seulement ***Imagine Andrei Tarkovsky circa SOLARIS directing Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and you’ll come close to the existential weirdness of the wonderfully loopy Soviet-era sci-fi comedy KIN-DZA-DZA! Two average Muscovites – a plainspoken construction foreman (Stanislav Lyubshin) and a Georgian student carrying a violin case (Leo Gabriadze) – encounter an odd homeless man on the street who asks, “Tell me the number of your planet in the Tentura?” In a flash, they’re teleported across the universe to the planet Pluke in the Kin-Dza-Dza galaxy – a Tatooine-like desert world whose inhabitants are hilariously noncommunicative (their main words are “ku” for good and “kyu” for very bad) and where common wooden matches are tremendously valuable. A deadpan, absurdist mixture of Kurt Vonnegut, Monty Python, Samuel Beckett and Jodorowsky’s never-made Dune where alien cultures are even more haphazard and WTF? than our own, the film is also a savage satire of bureaucratic idiocy and dysfunction no matter what political system you’re living under – or what planet you’re living on. Recently restored by Mosfilm for its first-ever U.S. release by Deaf Crocodile and Seagull Films. In Russian with English subtitles.Bonus Features:1. New restoration from the original camera negative and sound elements by Mosfilm.2. New hour-long video interview with lead actor Leo Gabriadze about the making of KIN-DZA-DZA! and the contributions of his father, co-writer Rezo Gabriadze, moderated by Dennis Bartok of Deaf Crocodile.3. New video interview about KIN-DZA-DZA! and the rich history of Soviet science-fiction cinema with comics artist (Swamp Thing), film historian and author Stephen R. Bissette, moderated by Dennis Bartok.4. New commentary track by film critic Walter Chaw (Film Freak Central).5. New written essay by film historian Justin Humphreys (George Pal: Man Of Tomorrow).6. Got a Match? On Vodka and Vinegar at the End of History - New video essay by journalist and physical media expert Ryan Verrill (The Disc Connected) and film professor Dr. Will Dodson.7. Blu-ray authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion.8. New art by Lucas Peverill and Beth Morris.