Peculiarities of the National Hunt

Peculiarities of the National Hunt (1995) is a Russian comedy by Aleksandr Rogozhkin you can watch online on iFILM. A young Finn named Raivo travels into the countryside to research old Russian hunting customs for a scholarly book. What he finds has very little to do with hunting.

The rifles mostly stay in their cases. Instead the days dissolve into endless feasts, vodka, philosophical toasts, and one famously airborne cow stuck in the bomb bay of a military plane. Aleksey Buldakov plays General Ivolgin, whose booming toast became a national catchphrase. Around him sit a Zen-minded forest ranger, a few city types from St. Petersburg, and Raivo himself — played by Ville Haapasalo — watching it all with baffled delight.

Rogozhkin never mocks his characters. He paints a warm, absurdist group portrait of men who care far more about the ritual than the catch. The film got quoted to death, spawned a string of sequels, and turned into a kind of weekend folk tradition in Russia. Stream Peculiarities of the National Hunt (1995) online on iFILM.