Composed of home footage shot by marusya syroechkovskaya throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, the film is a personal story of her and Kimi, a history student who loves both Alexander the Great and Kurt Cobain in a equal manner. It's both a subjective, intimate and personal narrative told by syroechkovskaya about growing up in post-soviet Russia, her relationship with Kimi and the doomed generation of people from broken families, who have no sights of a better future. While the film is pessimistic, sad and gloomy in it's overall tone, it also has a lot of humor as well as sweet and intimate moments, while syroechkovskaya seems to have a sense of self irony when looking at her young teenage self.
Technically and it's tone and subject matter there are a lot of similarities to Joonas Neuvonens Reindeerspotting and Lost Boys in that the film is composed of footage shot by digital hand held cameras and it focuses on one specific charather, while also including the film maker as a clear subject and a charather as well. There are also overlaps in the subject matter as well in that there is a lot drug use and film centers around experience of youth. How to save a dead friend however has a stronger societal narrative and ties the lives of it's main charathers strongly to the surrounding society, giving a picture of repression and negletence of the state towards it's people, that has produced the generation of young people who drive themselves towards oblivion. In addition to footage of hand held cameras there are animations that represent the early 2000's internet asthetics and the film ends in a beautiful 3d animation seuqence. The music of the film represents the youth culture it portrays and its a combination of "Russian grunge" and synth waves, that work well to immerse the viewer to the context.
A tragic, yet funny and intimate film that has a strong societal narrative.
