The Needle

Moro comes back to Alma-Ata. He is owed money and will not leave without it. While he waits he calls on his former girlfriend. Dina is not alone in the flat; there are other people there and she is using. Moro decides to get her out. They go to the shore of the Aral Sea; the water has retreated and rusted ships stand in the middle of the sand. Dina is well for a while. Then they go back to the city and the same people are still there. Moro finds the man at the head of it. Rashid Nugmanov directs. Viktor Tsoi plays Moro and Marina Smirnova plays Dina; Aleksandr Bashirov and Pyotr Mamonov are in the cast. It is a Soviet production, made in 1988. Viktor Tsoi was one of the best known rock musicians in the Soviet Union; the music in the film is his band's. The film drew large interest in the Soviet Union and was among the most watched productions of its time. Tsoi died in a road accident a short time later and the film remained his only leading part. The narrative keeps dialogue sparse and builds the character through bearing rather than speech. The matter it treats is drugs, a subject not openly handled in Soviet cinema at the time. The scenes at the drying Aral Sea are its best known passage and were shot on location. The ending is left closed and what happens is not said. Its limit is structure; the narrative is loose, the pace uneven, and there is little event. Who it is for: viewers who like the cinema of the late Soviet generation and rock culture. Who it is not for: it is loose, cold, and the ending unresolved.