An odd, unexpectedly delightful film from Luxemburg, this documentary charts the tour of Belgian Georges Christen, ‘The World's Strongest Man', around Russia. A stocky but not outlandishly muscular chap, George is a modest and pleasant traveller, drawing crowds wherever he goes, accompanied by his quiet and serious young interpreter Andrei. It's a film of great innocence, never commenting on anything it shows, but giving an intriguing glimpse into a side of the life of modern Russia, families out for the weekend, a middle class dinner party, faceless hotels, taxi rides through anonymous cities.

In fact it's Georges' teeth one has to admires most - he'll use them to pull a barge a few feet along the mighty Volga or bend thick iron bars or lift a new bride sitting on a table and whirl her in the air. It's a beautifully simple talent he has, old-fashioned and without irony. But we don't feel superior in our rather more sophisticated society, we feel admiration.

When an over-the-top presenter wilfully mistranslates to the crowd Georges' worthy words about having come to Russia to encourage its young athletes, as having come because he has heard about its beautiful women, he's none the wiser. But what does Andrei think? Ever polite and dapper, we have first met Andrei at the beginning of the film as he sets off from his modest house to meet Georges at the airport, clearly totally thrilled at the prospect. He's soon pointing out the tourist sites of Moscow with pride, sorting out hotel rooms and appearances, arranging sittings with a sculptor, a pleasant easy relationship developing between the two, despite his initial misgivings that ‘there might have been something homosexual' when he heard that Georges didn't have a wife. (Does weight-lifting have some special connotation in Russia?) Andrei is terribly earnest. He only lets his hair down at the very end in a surprising performance, which is a real little treat.

Also fascinating are the Russian public at leisure, just like the rest of us really, with their kids and their ice creams, avid for Georges and his uncomplicated feats, and always wooed with the announcement of yet another first for the Guinness Book of Records. How pleased arch-Thatcherites the McWhirter twins would have been to know their book had such clout in the new capitalist Russia...