User Reviews

Phew, what to say about this movie. There is simply too much to discuss. This is quite the impression you will get watching this film. It rushes from theme to theme, literally rushes! Let's start at the very base, a Strugatsky novel. I read a few Strugatsky stories, most notably of course "Roadside picnic". "Obitaemyy ostrov" however is not "stalker", no 10 out of 10 that is.

The brothers Strugatsky were Soviet writers, so some of their stories dealt with the soviet ideal human. In "Obitaemyy ostrov" earth has made it, and no doubt, all humanity transformed into perfect (probably communist) beings. That means every human being utilizes all of his/her potential: Mentally, physically and ethically. The latter is of most importance. A perfect communist is of almost angelic moral integrity. Whatever powers he will possess or obtain, he will not use these in any selfish or abusive way.

That said, our "hero" is a most beautiful, well build "Übermensch" (astonishing blond an blue eyed) from earth, with perfect integrity and morality. He is young, and unfortunately crashes on a strange planet. His spacecraft explodes, he is lost. As he is an "Übermensch", he is not desperate.

In fact he is imprisoned by a totalitarian state, escapes by accident, falls in love, and the story really gets complicated from then on. Right now there are true spoilers to come. So stop reading, if you want to watch the movie unbiased.

The unknown fathers reign over a city, that is (of course) a mixture of Metropolis and Blade Runner, and a little design of Dune. As the story evolves you will learn that almost everyone is controlled be rays send out by so called defense towers. These rays work at a subconscious level. Our hero is immune, as is a group of people, fought by the state as terrorists. Well the (super-)earthling becomes (in order of appearance) a prisoner, guard elite soldier, free individual and lover, terrorist, convict, runaway convict, terrorist leader, member of the establishment, revolutionary and finally earthling again. The hero is somewhat naive. He tries all these positions like a youngster without any prejudices.

In the end, he knows about the foundation of the political system. The political elite of the state resembles a bit Stalin's system. The state's attorney is in trouble. That means he is about to be murdered. He tries to convince our hero to destroy the central of the ray-emitting towers and take over the power after wards. With the help of some co-convicts the hero succeeds, but destroys the central of power instead.

One of the very nice and intelligent moments of the movie is the instance, where the friends of the hero take over power. And one really feels the temptation of power. Almost brilliant.

One high ranking member of the government turns out to be human (thus superhuman) as well. He is furious about the actions of our young hero. The so called roamer tries to change the system since 20 years. But he tries to avoid unnecessary losses or victims. He is the man for the slow change, no revolution. The young hero is the revolutionary, simply incapable of bearing the injustice. While exchanging some intellectual backgrounds the roamer and the hero beat hell out of each other. Really strange (for super-humans) I think. And naturally, the young rebel insists on a quick change.

The movie is optically splendid, albeit the cgi is about 10 years behind. They have enough budget to make things look convincing most of the time. Designwise they steal from a lot of movies.

The film was more entertaining than I expected. But it has too much to tell to be really great. A lot of interesting things just rush by. Well, and the same might be true about this comment.

In 2157, people lives in peace and progress on Earth, respecting ecology and space travels are very common. The pilot Maksim Kammerer (Vasiliy Stepanov) is hit by an asteroid and he crashes his spacecraft in the unknown planet Saraksh. Maksim gets stranded in the planet and is captured by a local and arrested. Maksim finds a planet in the stage of Earth in the 20th century, with war, social problems and destroyed ecology. He is sent to the capital escorted by Corporal Gai Gaal (Pyotr Fyodorov), but they are attacked and he escapes. Maksim protects the waiter Rada Gaal (Yuliya Snigir) against a stalker and he learns that she is Gai's sister. Then Gai recommends Maksim to his Captain Chachu (Mikhail Evlanov) and the earthling joins the guard. However Maksim discover that this repressed society is ruled by an oligarchy called Unknown Fathers. Further there are anti-ballistic defense towers that the locals believe that are for their protection that are actually broadcast towers that are used to control the minds of those that are susceptible to the broadcast that are called degenerates. Maksim leaves the guard and joins the degenerates to destroy the towers. However, he is captures with Rada and Gai. Now he is plotting with other prisoners how to destroy the central transmission to the towers and leave the people have free will.

"Obitaemyy Ostrov", a.k.a. "Prisoners of Power", is a complex story with a messy screenplay and absolutely lost in translation. I have just watched this movie on DVD twice, the first time spoken in Russian with Portuguese subtitles; then I saw it again dubbed in Portuguese with Portuguese subtitles. Surprisingly the dialogs in Portuguese and the subtitles in Portuguese are different. Based on this reality, my conclusion is that the Brazilian viewer misses many points in the translation. It is very difficult to follow and understand the society in planet Sarakash for those like me that have never read the sci-fi novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. There is no explanation, for example, for the curse word "Massaraksh". My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Prisioneiros do Poder" ("Prisioners of the Power")

A Russian film based on the novel Prisoners of Power by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. After reading the English translation one thing is clear the film follows the book closely but not exactly.

Overall I think this is one of the best films I've seen in my life. The cinematography is beautiful and the characters are very well written. Anyone interested in seeing it should love Sci-Fi because this film relies heavily on your ability to imagine a world where human beings are completely free and have begun a new age..

Maxim Kammerer is the main character during the story, we get to see him as a mostly inexperienced youth. In the book he's in his early 20's but here he appears older which probably means they just couldn't find someone to fill the part who was as good an actor as Vasiliy Stepanov. As time goes on the man evolves and gains better judgement in dealing with his situation.

Its very clear the film was adapted from the book because in the very beginning when he runs into the asteroid/meteors it begins diverging from the novel. Where-as the novel has him being shot down from the surface.

Maxim is not an amateur space explorer but in fact is part of something called the Independent Reconnaissance Unit or IRU. He can find no direction in his life for studying anything specific so joins up around age 20 and begins charting planets from the surface/orbit. In the book its made clear this is not his first mission as his parents want him to do something else and generally everyone already knows what he does.

Another divergence from the book is with the way he crashes, the film has meteors/asteroids that he runs into but we know that's unlikely because his ship would certainly have given warning since because even the most simple of radars can track a huge rock! The reason it's done this way is the backstory would've probably required around 30 mins to establish and they wanted to get right into the meat of the book instead. So how does he crash then? The IRU sent him to this planet to map it and check for life and while on approach he is shot down by weapons fire. Later on in the story this happens again to him in the plane which is when he realizes what happened to him originally.

The important part is the film does succeed in capturing ones interest even with all the changes, especially the end fight between Maxim and Strannik which never really happened in the book! It was EPIC in the film but the book has them driving off in the car together after Maxim has blown the main tower center up. Then he calmly tells Maxim he's from Earth too.

The book is great, the film is great. This is just like Black Lightening in that few know of it's existence outside Russia.