Riaba Ma Poule

O tempora! O mores! Not only has Russian peasant life altered somewhat since Konchalovsky made Asya's Happiness back in '67, his talent has changed dramatically too - and not for the better. Here, he returns to the kolkhoz of the earlier and far superior film (featured, unwisely, in brief clips), and uses the same villagers to act out a bizarre, supposedly comic fable about the moral and social turmoil caused when Asya's chicken lays a golden egg. A broad, sour farce, that seems to argue that democracy can't succeed because the Russian peasants are so idle, greedy and stupid. Which wouldn't be so bad if it were funny or touching. But it's not. Awful.