stilyagi

Boris becomes Bob and Fjodor becomes Fred: the "hipsters" live the American dream. With their garish clothes, quiffs, platform shoes and petticoats they represent the ultimate provocation in the Soviet Union of the fifties, not to mention the enemy image par excellence of the Komsomol cadres, who tirelessly attempt to crack down on their colourful jazz parties in order to maintain the predominance of uniform grey. It's on one of these crackdowns that Mels meets Polina, otherwise known as Polly, for the first time. It's not just Polly's beauty that Mels succumbs to, but also the jazz music and wild lifestyle he encounters there. With the backing of his father he buys a saxophone and works himself into the favour of the hipster circles and, more importantly, into Polly's affections. This brings him into conflict with more people than just his former comrades at the Komsomol. In the end Mels has to concede that the threat to this colourful youth culture lurks somewhere else...

This musical film is something like a cross between Swing Kids, High School Musical und Sonnenallee. In transfering the urban subculture of the Eisenhower era to the Moscow of Stalin's time it yields a parable on the dictatorships of the twentieth century, in which parallels to the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi also emerge. STILYAGI received several awards at the Nika Awards, the Russian equivalent to the Oscars. It is widely regarded in Russia as the most successful film of the year and has provided the inspiration for numerous "stilyagi parties".