Highway (1999)

Sergey Dvortsevoy takes the observational style he developed in Paradise and pares it down even further: this hour-long film has less than 30 shots and features brilliant use of offscreen space. Dvortsevoy's portrait is intimate, and rich with subtle details about the family's marginal existence. The film's opening shot features superhuman feats -- the eldest son lies on broken glass as his father drops a 32-kilogram weight on his chest -- performed before a heartbreakingly scant and motley audience. Several of Highway's scenes are so enmeshed in the banalities of life that they cross all cultural barriers -- the children's incessant bickering, the mother's tired exasperation, the father's impassivity as he drives the bus -- while others are imbued with cinematic poetry -- the mother serenading her brood at night, or the eaglet with wings spread, never quite lifting into flight. Highway is a beautiful and oddly compelling work that haunts the viewer long after the lights have gone up. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide