1991 · drama · surreal
Happy Days
Directed by Aleksei Balabanov1h 26m1991
After being released from a St. Petersburg hospital with a head injury, a nameless protagonist wanders through a desolate, crumbling city in search of a place to stay. As he struggles to reconstruct his identity and find a sense of belonging, he roams the bleak streets and is befriended by an eccentric beggar with a donkey and a slightly deranged prostitute.
Our read: Happy Days (1991) reads as a heavy, measured, surreal drama · surreal entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, cold in temperature, nihilistic in outlook, with a strong directorial signature.
Heavy, measured, measured drama / surreal, surreal in texture. Nihilistic, intimate, cold.
- heavy
- measured
- surreal
- bleak
- cold
- intimate
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How Happy Days feels to watch.
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What watching it is actually like.
“You want stark Beckett-inspired wandering through a desolate post-Soviet city.”
Skip it tonight — Skip if bleak existential arthouse will leave you wrecked or empty.
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