Red Penguins is a documentary, ostensibly about how the Pittsburgh Penguins invested in the Moscow Red Army hockey team after the fall of the USSR. It's really more about the chaos that followed the transition from communism to "democracy", and the corruption that took over. I'm really interested in hockey, Russia and history/politics, so I was keen to see this film. I had intended to wear the Russian Penguins hockey jersey that I bought years ago (customized with my name in Cyrillic on the back!), but in the rush to prepare for a long day with 3 films, I forgot.
The film had a mix of interesting history, humourous looks at how the Russian Penguins tried to market their product in a country unaccustomed to commercial promotion, and upsetting scenes of violence as the fragile Russian democracy yielded to Putin's corrupt regime. Overall the film was rough and uneven. Worth seeing if you're a fan of these topics like me, but not one of the finer films we saw this week.
This was the 100th films I have seen at TIFF, dating back to my first in 1998!
TIFF 2019 Overview
Congratulations on your 100th film. Must be up late writing blog, I found your first spelling error on this blog.
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ReplyDeleteI noticed my comments are Published as Unknown author. I updated my profile to show Danny Chung but old comments still show as Unknown. I guess we can't complain about ad-free software too much.
ReplyDeletefixed the typo; thanks!
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