Well for example one of its merits was how each and every character spoke in a unique voice. I've never seen anything like that, even in movies that are touted as having that feature. It's like each character was written by a different scriptwriter. Everyone had their own vocabulary, and each was faithful to how that person would talk in real life (the factory worker, the mother, the priest, etc.) Now how do you convey that with subtitles? I was watching it with 2 Russians (my mom and my ex) and each was commenting on how accurately the movie represents Russia. (Bear in mind, though, that that was something like 'redneck Russia', let's say. Like in the U.S., there's a world of difference between cities like Moscow and the 'boondocks'. But still the corruption and morals in the movie were representative of the whole.)