Monetochka's new music video about Russia's crime-addled 1990s is modeled on a classic cult film
In late May, Elizaveta Gyrdymova — aka “Monetochka” (Lil’ Coin) — released a new album called Raskraski Dlya Vzroslykh (Coloring for Adults). (Read Meduza’s review here.) This week, she put out a music video for 90, one of the songs on the album. The video was directed by Michael Idov, the former chief editor of GQ Russia and the author of the recent book Dressed Up for a Riot.
The video, steeped in 1990s nostalgia, is modeled on several scenes from the 1997 Russian cult film Brat (Brother), which starred Sergey Bodrov, Jr. In the music video, Gyrdymova plays Bodrov’s role, attending a party, sustaining a gunshot wound, and murdering people.
The song 90 is a satire on the myth of Russia’s “troubled” 1990s. It includes the following lyrics:
But carving up a country is where playtime stops.
[...]
It’s only thanks to tapes and to Krovostok’s song
That I learned with horror what had gone wrong.
That in the 90s people turned up dead,
And they ran the streets buck naked.
The music video also features performances from Gyrdymova’s friends, the singer Grechka, Tatyana Bulanova, Evgeny Fedorov, Mister Maloi, and the film critic Stanislav Zelvensky.