SHLYAKHETNI VOLOTSYUGY

 Said bangle is made of iron, of course, and was once carried by Alexander the Great on his conquests to the Hindu Kush. And the employees of the intelligence services of the dictatorships west and east of Poland are getting ultimately in the way of one another while searching for the piece of jewellery. Director Oleksandr Berezan commemorates with this film a legendary culture, dialect and humour of Lviv in the interwar period. At the centre of this fast-paced musical comedy are the so-called batiars, hooliganistic gangsters, who had their sights set on music, alcohol, dalliances and a little money. Their antagonists, human SS terriers, National Socialist alcoholics, tap-dancing NKVD recruits, and a Soviet agent who uses a cuckoo clock to communicate with headquarters in Moscow, have little chance of achieving their goals in this wicked pub polka-swing jazz culture. BB