The hero of Limita (1994, Denis Yevstigneyev) is Ivan P. Voroshilov. He belongs to the marginal social stratum of the so-called limitchiki – thus the title. He is a computer whiz, not indifferent to the redistribution of the New Russian wealth. The Russian initials of his name read VIP, and he stands up for it with a dangerous combination of primordial evil, high professionalism and personal charisma. With equal coolness he breaks a complicated computer code, steals a cheap can for the sake of stealing, purchases a river station, makes love to a pretty stranger, fights...

Yevstigneyev seems insensitive to the moral ambiguity of his characters. He sees them as the heroes of the New Barbarian Revolution and openly admires their cowboy ethics. He is acquitting them with the same argument used by the classic Soviet cinema from the '20s to acquit the ruthless Bolshevik commissars, or by the classic American cinema from the '30s to acquit the murderous depression gangsters. They restore social justice so they must be right. The visual leitmotif of the morning ritual dance says it all. It is a climactic self-assertion of the New Russians as masters in post-communist Russia. But it is also the ultimate triumph of the morally ambiguous New Cinematic Image over the preoccupation of the old, message-oriented Soviet Cinema.

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