MMoCA Cinema • Kin-Dza-Dza!

Overview

MMoCA Cinema • Kin-Dza-Dza!
Thursday, August 20, 8:15 PM
Kin-Dza-Dza! | Georgiy Daneliya | Soviet Union | 1986 | 135 minutes

Imagine Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris) directing Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and you’ll come close to the existential weirdness of the wonderfully loopy Soviet-era sci-fi comedy Kin-Dza-Dza!

Two average Muscovites are teleported across the universe to the planet Pluke in the Kin-Dza-Dza galaxy—a Tatooine-like desert world whose inhabitants are hilariously noncommunicative. Kin-Dza-Dza! is a deadpan, absurdist mixture of Kurt Vonnegut, Monty Python, Samuel Beckett and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s never-made Dune, as well as a savage satire of bureaucratic idiocy and dysfunction no matter what political system you’re living under—or what planet you’re living on.

“While taking cues from contemporary events in the Soviet Union, Kin-dza-dza! nevertheless expands the scope of its satire to include not only Western capitalism, but, more importantly for its staying power, the follies and failings of our shared humanity. —Budd Wilkins, Slant.

About MMoCA Cinema

MMoCA Cinema is a program of MMoCA’s Education Department and is curated by James Kreul. MMoCA’s film programming is generously funded by maiahaus, Venture Investors, LLC, and a gift from an anonymous donor.