Part Kafka, part Agatha Christie and part Monty Python, director Karen Shakhnazarov's surreal satire of Communism follows an Everyman engineer named Varakin (Leonid Filatov) who arrives in a remote city where nothing quite makes sense, but everyone acts as if it does. He's quickly drawn into the investigation of the suicide (or possibly murder?) of a local restaurant chef, Nikolaev - who may (or may not) be Varakin's missing father. The more complex and absurdist the mystery becomes, the more poignant and plaintive Varakin's predicament - "I have to get back to Moscow," he pleads to no avail. Along the way we're treated to a bizarre and wonderful sideshow of non sequiturs out of a Wes Anderson film, including an underground museum filled with a thousand years of real and imagined Russian history ("Here's the pistol with which Urusov shot the False Dimitry II.") Frozen in time, frozen far beneath the surface, the waxwork figures are strangely beautiful and forlorn, like Shakhnazarov's marvelous and enigmatic satire of Soviet bureaucracy. With music by the great Eduard Artemyev (SOLARIS, STALKER).
Elena Arzhanik sitting at a typewriter as a naked secretary, showing bare breasts as a guy hands her a piece of paper and leaves before Elena talks to another guy who steps into an office next to her. From Zerograd (AKA Gorod Zero).
Elena Arzhanik completely naked in high heels as a guy watches her water some potted plants in an office, Elena turning to look at him. From Zerograd.
