Programmer's Note

Acid trips. Mesopotamian conspiracy theo­ries. The spirit of Che Guevara summoned by a Ouija board. These aren’t what one thinks of when it comes to Russian cinema, but Generation P is a game changer that explodes with unique and outrageous style.

Based on Victor Pelevin’s bestselling cult novel, Generation P follows the exploits of a disillusioned young poet named Babylen Tatarsky (Vladimir Yepifantsev) during the drab days of post-communist Moscow. He joins an advertising agency and discovers a knack for creating subversive campaigns that put distinctively Russian twists on Western-style goods, feeding the mad dash to rebrand the Russian dream for a new age of mass consumerism.

When Babylen hits a dry spell, he goes on a bender, devouring a cocktail of LSD, mush­rooms, cocaine and vodka. His intention was simply to kick-start his creative process, but in the resulting head trip he encounters the revelation that there is no difference between virtual reality and the actual world. He finds an unexpected muse in the ghost of Che Guevara, who proceeds to educate him on the theory of “WOWism,” or how televi­sion destroys the individual spirit.

Babylen’s world is jolted further as he’s introduced to disposable spin doctors, gang­sters and an agency serving as a front for a Babylonian cult that worships the goddess Ishtar. She offers him control of a mechanism that produces “simple human happiness” and can ultimately manipulate the world.

In the eyes of the old-school art-house elite, Generation P will be an angry young upstart: course, cynical, vulgar and brash. But these are the very qualities that make it so refresh­ing. Director Victor Ginzburg deftly navigates the novel’s complex narrative structure to create a film steeped in cyberpunk mysticism and social satire, akin to How to Get Ahead in Advertising, the work of William S. Burroughs and perhaps that wild-eyed madman on the street who spews conspiracy theories while asking for change. The casual viewer might be rattled by the film’s machine-gun assault of Russian slang, pop-cult and political-history references — but rest assured, Generation P is never boring. Colin Geddes