Putin's Kiss

Name: Putin's Kiss
Genre: Drama, Documentary
Released: February 17, 2012
Duration: 85 min
Rating: 52

2012

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Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

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Putin's Kiss

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Movie Details & Credits

Kino Lorber Films | Release Date: February 17, 2012 | Not Rated

Summary: Puttin's Kiss portrays contemporary life in Russia through the story of Masha, a 19 year-old girl who is a member of Nashi, a political youth organization connected with the Kremlin. Extremely ambitious, the young Masha quickly rises to the top of Nashi, but begins to question her involvement when a dissident journalist whom she hasPuttin's Kiss portrays contemporary life in Russia through the story of Masha, a 19 year-old girl who is a member of Nashi, a political youth organization connected with the Kremlin. Extremely ambitious, the young Masha quickly rises to the top of Nashi, but begins to question her involvement when a dissident journalist whom she has befriended is savagely attacked. (Kino Lorber)… Expand

Director: Lise Birk Pedersen

Genre(s): Drama, Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 85 min

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Critic Reviews

V.A. Musetto

Feb 17, 2012

More than just the portrait of a naive young woman. It's a frightening look at Putin's warped version of democracy. Read full review

Leslie Felperin

Feb 14, 2012

The picture still tells a riveting story about contempo Russia's darkest side. Read full review

Alison Willmore

Feb 15, 2012

Putin's Kiss maintains a wry distance that unnecessarily trivializes the shocking act that finalizes Drokova's parting of ways with Nashi, but the melancholy of her disillusionment remains. Underneath all this heated discussion of democracy in Russia, it becomes clear, there may not be much actual democracy at work. Read full review

Andrew Schenker

Feb 14, 2012

Fails to dig too deep into the politics or inner workings of the new right-wing youth movement it profiles, remaining content with simplistic conclusions about pro-Putin thuggery. Read full review

J.R. Jones

Mar 8, 2012

Pederson has no smoking gun that connects Nashi to dirty tricks or violence, but there are plenty of both swirling around Moscow. Read full review

Benjamin Mercer

Feb 14, 2012

Though Masha's courage is considerable, her change of heart finally feels too nuanced for Pedersen's streamlined political-drama treatment, complete with persistent intrigue music and scenes of Masha restating her dilemma to friends that seem rather canned. Read full review

David Fear

Feb 14, 2012

Lise Birk Pedersen's documentary offers some compelling peeks into Russia's bureaucratic skulduggery, but her attempt to frame the situation through a young convert's coming of age never really coheres. Innocence was lost; so, apparently, was much of the insightful commentary. Read full review

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maulen

Jun 19, 2017

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. If, like many of us, you are a kind of person who came to watch Putin’s Kiss to witness the glory of our dear leader Vladimir’s kissing skills, sorry, he isn’t even half naked in this one (SAD). In fact, Putin’s Kiss isn’t even his, it’s Masha Drokova, an avid political activist of youth organization “NASHI” who kisses Mr. Putin on a cheek of all places. Apart from some smug liberal journalists talking about the size of Masha’s breasts, the film features some NETFLIX worthy drama. Wonder what Russian youth does when they aren’t hacking the U.S. elections or kicking the hell out of each other at school? Get your cofvefe and enjoy how Danish director Lise Birk Pedersen gets the World Cinema Cinematography Award in Documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival by gluing together all kinds of videomaterials from different news channels, interviews and dark alley camera shots. For an outsider, it is a surprising and thrilling experience to witness how Putin’s regime uses the youth, and how the dermocracy works. First surprise, Russian youth don’t drink no alcohol, real patriots of NASHI (Ours) do sports, don’t smoke and march every year in size of 30,000 heads in Moscow after being trained at Putin Jugend camps. Second surprise, NASHI is an antifascist movement, and by the way, fascists are liberals, dissidents and the opposition. Pedersen, of course, discusses this affair from the point of view of Russian liberal journalist, Oleg Kashin (Good), who bravely fights with his oppositionist friends against NASHI, who occasionally **** on their cars and beat them to death (Evil). Now, Masha Drokova is a very typical middle-class Russian girl, who loves her country and older men in power. She follows Vasily Yakemenko, the founder of NASHI, to become one of the leaders of the movement herself while still a teenager. Trouble starts when she joins Moscow University’s school of journalism and becomes friends with the good guys (Oh No!) What a great metaphor and a message, the girl who kissed Putin becomes a liberal oppositionist. Sounds good, doesn’t work. Problem is that Pedersen tries to craft a coming of age story of a mislead girl, who then comes to realize the great goodness of liberals and evil evilness of her friends and peers. However, it doesn’t stick, Masha doesn’t regret joining NASHI, even as journalist Kashin pushes her to say it on camera. Liberals burn a book by NASHI’s founder, after Masha and NASHI are compared to Hitler for suggesting burning a book. Something went wrong with the story telling, the meaningful commentary and freedom of interpretation gets lost in a hectic montage of the film. The dynamic shots are mixed with long shots of a city landscape and seemingly every video material Pedersen could find on a subject, which makes the movie unnecessarily long. While the film fails to become a soul-touching story, it avoids being ignorant to Russian context, Ms. Pedersen follows the Danish filmmaking tradition of putting a personal story in the center, however her previous experience in filming in the 90’s in Russia allows her to show the broader picture. As a documentary about the inner workings of Russian democracy and particularly putting a spotlight on a little-known youth movement, Putin’s Kiss does its job, it did attract over 300 people at its premiere at IDFA and according to IDFA Founder Ally Derks who interviewed Pedersen, those 300 were not disappointed.… Expand

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