Taxi Blues

A black comedy exploring the complex love-hate, master-slave relationship between a self-destructive Jewish saxophone player and a bigoted Russian taxicab driver in contemporary Moscow. "This film is a premonition of civil war," says Jewish director Loungine, and indeed this glasnost-era story reveals long-standing resentments between the "intelligentsia" and the working class, and between Jews and Russians. It depicts a wild, "anything goes" atmosphere where vodka is sold in every back alley, where American jazz musicians jam with their Soviet counterparts, where the backroom of a cab station can serve as a carwash, steam-bath, bar, and black-market trading post! This unsentimental, uncensored film sees Moscow the way it is and with all its contradictions - grim yet spontaneous, impoverished yet culturally vital - filled with desperation, longing, and most of all, the blues.

Pavel Lounguine was born in Moscow in 1949. His father is a famous scriptwriter, his mother a noted translator (who has adapted works by such illustrious writers as Nathalie Sarraute, Francois Mauriac, and Boris Vian into Russian). Following in his family tradition, Lounguine studied structural linguistics at Moscow Univesity, and also took a Degree of Higher Studies in Direction and Scriptwriting. Since 1975, Lounguine has written numberous scripts, ten of which have been brought to the screen. TAXI BLUES, which is Mr. Lounguine's first film as a director, won him the "Best Director" prize at Cannes Film Festival. In creating TAXI BLUES, which he considers his first fully realized work in film, Lounguine acknowledges the influence of key American films of the 70's which centered upon male comradry and contemporary social criticism such as Hal Ashby's THE LAST DETAIL, Jerry Schatzberg's SCARECROW, and Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER. Upcoming projects include LES MONTAGNES RUSSES (to be produced by MK2) and a feature film about the Mafia in the former U.S.S.R. Mr. Lounguine is married and has two children. He currently lives in Moscow.