The Needle (1988 film)

An enigmatic drifter known as Moro arrives in Alma-Ata to extract a debt from a lowly criminal known as Spartak. He tracks down his ex-girlfriend, Dina, who lets him stay in her apartment. Meeting his debtor in a cafe called "Parliament", Moro learns that Spartak also owes money to a lot of other people. Later, he finds out that Dina's employer, the surgeon Artur, is supplying her with drugs and using her apartment to store morphine. In an attempt to help Dina, Moro takes her away to the Aral Sea, which they had visited together years before. The sea is by this time a barren wasteland. Moro conceals the ampules of morphine to which Dina is addicted, and after a few weeks in withdrawal she appears to be cured, but her habit returns when they return to the city. Almost desperate, Moro confronts the drug dealers, sees Spartak go into a state of hysteria, and turns Artur's people against him. The film ends as Moro is stabbed by one of Artur's thugs in a snowy street as he walks home to Dina. The ending is ambiguous, with Moro's ultimate fate unknown.

• Viktor Tsoi as Moro
• Marina Smirnova as Dina
• Aleksandr Bashirov as Spartak
• Pyotr Mamonov as Artur Yusupovich
• Archimedes Iskakov as Archimedes

The film was commissioned by state-backed studio Kazakhfilm, following the political and social reforms of Perestroika. Nugmanov agreed to direct the film on the condition that he could choose the cast and edit the script at his will. Nugamov cast close friend Viktor Tsoi as the protagonist Moro, a character they had both been developing over their studies at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. Tsoi had previously played himself in the epilogue of 1987 crime film Assa.[2][3] On directing The Needle, Nugamov said:

"I tried to free the film (scenes, dialogues, plot) as much as possible from any symbolism, to make it like an empty vessel that each viewer could fill with their own interpretation."[3]

Principal photography took place across the Kazakh SSR.[2] The ship that Moro and Dina find in the Aral Sea is a research vessel named Гидролог, or Hydrolog.

Tsoi was apparently dissatisfied with the rudeness of his character in the hospital scene. He objected to the phrase "Он тебя трахает?" ("He fucks you?") and suggested removing it.[3]

The final scene where Moro was stabbed was filmed on a street named Tulebaev (Тулебаева) in Almaty. Nugmanov claimed in an interview on Closed Screening that Moro survived the final scene, claiming a series of films about Moro were being planned.

Alongside Assa in 1987, The Needle, released in the age of Perestroika, helped to bring Viktor Tsoi and Kino into mainstream popularity across the USSR, as well as attracting international attention. The band would go on to play before a crowd of 70,000 at a concert in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on 24 June 1990, shortly before Tsoi was killed in a car accident in Latvia.[4]

The Needle helped to bring about the era of Kazakh new wave cinema, with films produced in Kazakhstan during this period including Nugamov's 1993 film The Wild East. Originally, this was planned to feature Tsoi again as Moro, with a Japanese studio offering to help fund the production, however Tsoi's death in 1990 forced Nugamov to heavily rewrite the script.[2]

The site of the final scene along Tulebaev street in Almaty has become one of many memorials for Viktor Tsoi. In 2017, an avenue dedicated to the film was opened and metal plaques with lyrics from Tsoi's songs were laid on a stone-tiled walkway.[5] A statue of Tsoi was later unveiled on the avenue on June 21, 2018.[6]

• A star called the Sun
• The Needle: Remix

• Igla at IMDb
• The Needle at AllMovie