“Kin-Dza-Dza” was directed by Soviet-Georgian filmmaker Georgy Danelia in 1986. Danelia was a director of an iconic Khrushchev Thaw era movie “Walking the Streets of Moscow” (1964). However he is best known for his comedies that incorporate a good deal of social drama and usually revolve around private and work life of a main character: a plumber in “Afonya” (1975), a pilot in “Mimino” (1977), a philology prof in “Autumn Marathon” (1979).
However “Kin-Dza-Dza” is very different because of its sci-fi setting that allows somewhat deeper level of social criticism. It is in a way similar to “Dunno on the Moon” (1965), a fairytale novel by Nikolay Nosov that tells the story of Dunno, a citizen of earth utopian socialist Flower City and his journey to the Moon where a capitalist system is dominant.
“Kin-Dza-Dza” depicts extraterrestrial capitalism in a way more apocalyptic manner. Seas of planet Plyuk were turned into fuel (lutz). What is left is a desert through which dwellers wearing rags wander. They are deprived of any opportunities even in their language. “Ku” is the only word they need, since there’s really nothing else to say. “Rabid racism”, ecilop despotism (ecilop is police spelled backwards), autocracy of mr. PJ. It’s a terminal stage of a capitalist decay.
Interstellar “communism” is also shown closer to the end. Elves from galaxy Alfa living in green meadows speculate in a following manner: “Our adjacency to galaxy Kin-Dza-Dza is a misfortune, they are devoured by their passions… imagine what would happen if we’d allowed them to decide on their own!”. This higher intergalactic bureaucratic establishment, it seems to me, was the one to turn Plyuk’s seas into fuel, then biologically fencing them out. It couldn’t be Plyukians’ own decision.
Was Danelia a left-winger he’d probably film a different ending. Soviet incomers would’ve broken PJ’s head, overthrew ecilop authority, stopped discrimination of refugees from Hanud, built socialism on Plyuk and then kept fighting against Alfian domination in Tentura.
That could have been a fascinating communist version of “Star Wars”.