MOVIE SPOILER ALERT. Yesterday I viewed the film Simple Things (Простые Вещи) by director/scriptwriter Alexei Popogrebsky at the Russian film festival in London. It's a good piece of kitchen-sink naturalism, which moves at a more leisurely pace than I think any US or UK movie would attempt. The lead (Sergei Puskepali) is very good and there's a great performance from Leonid Bronevoi as an actor facing the end of his life with suave fatalism. The movie is 95% gloom and urban grit: marital disharmony in a communal flat, street fighting, relentless smoking, vodka-drinking etc. The upbeat tone of the ending - two happy mums-to-be taking their tummies for a walk in the park - is startling and at first made little sense to me. Then I saw the state support referenced in the credits and remembered the Russian government's drive to raise the birthrate. I guess that's how this low-down on middle-aged Russian male angst got its funding: it was pitched as a birth propaganda movie.