Hipsters

Hipsters (Стиляги, 2008) — watch online on iFILM, directed by Valery Todorovsky. Moscow, 1955: Mels is a committed Komsomol member who believes in doing things the right way, right up until he runs into Polly.

Polly is a stilyaga — bright clothes, towering hair, jazz records instead of Soviet marches. Choosing her means choosing against everything his comrades stand for. Anton Shagin and Oxana Akinshina pull off the central romance with real conviction; Oleg Yankovsky, Sergei Garmash, and Leonid Yarmolnik fill out the world of adults who made their peace with the system long ago. The film is a full musical, but its songs are Russian rock — DDT, Zemfira, Bi-2 — rearranged for a 1950s big band. It shouldn't work as well as it does.

What Todorovsky built is not a nostalgia trip. It's a portrait of nonconformity in any era, in any place. Stream Hipsters online on iFILM.