Five Bottles of Vodka

Five Bottles of Vodka (Russian: Пять бутылок водки) is a 2002 Russian black comedy directed by Svetlana Baskova.

Plot[]

The events of the film take place in an ordinary Moscow bar. The owner of the bar is a drug addict and alcoholic Alexander Alexandrovich (Sanych), who gets drunk at work until he vomits. Two cleaners live in the back room, the cleaner Mychalkin is possibly mentally retarded, as he does not speak and communicates with inarticulate mooing. Another cleaner, performed by Sergey Pakhomov, is much smarter.

The film begins with Mychalkin stealing 5 bottles of vodka from the bar and bringing them to the first cleaner. Sanych is very worried about the loss and is trying to identify the thief, suspecting both cleaners of stealing. At the same time, the first cleaner, angry at Sanych, breaks bottles on his own head, singing to Mychalkin The Beatles' song "Yesterday". He then kills Mychalkin to relieve him of his suffering.

The next day, a gangster cooperating with Sanych comes and makes a strange order: on the first day he wants to have sex with a virgin girl, on the second day he wants to have sex with a virgin man, and on the third day he wants to die. if Sanych does not fulfill the order, the gangster will kill him.

Sanych brings the gangster a waitress in a wedding dress, he has sex with her, and then strangles her. The cleaner puts her corpse next to Mychalkin's corpse, lights candles near the corpses and sings church songs.

The next day, Sanych dresses the cleaner in a wedding dress and brings him to the gangster as a virgin man. The gangster has sex with him, after which Sanych locks the cleaner in the basement.

The next day, the gangster sings the song "Break my heart for luck" in karaoke, then Sanych strangles him with a microphone cord. Sanych gets drunk with alcohol and starts to puke, and then falls asleep.

Awards and criticism[]

Five Bottles of Vodka was awarded the Youth Jury Award of the Kinoshock Festival. This film and The Green Elephant made Baskova a cult art-house director.^[1]

As noted by the magazine "Iskusstvo Kino", Five Bottles of Vodka is "a cruel film dedicated to the degradation of humanity".^[2][3]

References[]