The cinema of Russian film director and Mosfilm chairman
Karen Shakhnazarov is almost chameleonic in content, form and themes across the
moviemaking board.Starting out in the
musical subgenre with Jazzmen and Winter Evening in Gagra before
making a jump to the coming-of-age adolescent dramedy Courier, no two
Shakhnazarov pictures are alike and play wildly with the conventions to
storytelling.For as much of the
director’s checkered and diverse filmography has begun to crop up on Mosfilm’s
channel, usually in 4K resolution, one which is only getting stateside
recognition now (thanks to the folks at Deaf Crocodile Films and their mission
to excavate old and new Russian classics) is the 1988 Kafkaian surrealist
satire Zerograd or Zero City depending on the translation.
Something of a Russian O Lucky Man!which makes sense
considering Shakhnazarov’s eventual casting of Malcolm McDowell in the equally
strange The Assassin of the Tsar, Zerograd follows local Moscow engineer
Varakin (Leonid Filatov) who arrives in a nameless mysterious town for an appointment
only to find a nude office secretary and a factory manager oblivious to the
fact his own chief engineer has been missing for years.Simply wanting to return home to Moscow after
the time wasted, he makes a pit stop at a hotel restaurant devoid of customers
before the waiter brings out a cake made to look like his own head with an
ultimatum that he eats the bizarre dessert or the chef will commit
suicide.Later still his misadventures lead
him to a wax museum encompassing Russian history including but not limited to
an American rock n’ roll relic, political intrigue and elements of a whodunit
thrown into the mix. Posited alongside Shakhnazarov’s The Assassin of the Tsar
and Full Moon Day, Zerograd is a dissertation of Soviet
history through the fractured prism of anachronism and surrealism, dealing in
the abstract while grounded by a punctuated satire of contemporary Russian
life.Unfolding like a science-fiction
horror nightmare that’s at once goofy and otherworldly yet faintly familiar, Zerograd
is equal parts Lindsay Anderson and Terry Gilliam with its increasingly
peculiar episodic vignettes that drift through space and time loosely that
eventually coalesce into a whole.As we
join with Varakin down an infinitesimal rabbit hole with shadowy bureaucratic figures
and elements of a murder mystery, the film becomes an absurdist satire highlighting
the at-the-time strangeness with the transitioning sociopolitical landscape.
Co-written by frequent Shakhnazarov collaborator Aleksandr
Borodyansky, aided by ornate and formally composed cinematography lensed by Courier
director of photography and boasting a pulsating electronic score by legendary
composer Eduard Artemyev, Zerograd joins such surreal Russian
masterworks as Kin-dza-dza!, Heart of a Dogand Khrustalyov, My Car!Quirky, phantasmagorical, grotesque,
funny, lewd and painted with broad brushstrokes, Zerograd is something
of a labyrinthine netherworld that somehow exists out in the open, a snarky assessment
of the shifting soil of then Soviet Union.Not completely unlike Tarkovsky’s Stalker in theory, it presents a
maze for us to lose ourselves in before gradually converging to a singular idea
of trying to find one’s identity in a strange time to be living in Russia. Performance-wise, Zerograd boasts a notable ensemble
cast including but not limited to Courier costar Oleg Basilashivili, Moscow
Does Not Believe in Tears director Vladimir Menshov and Sukiny deti star
Leonid Filatov as the film’s hapless protagonist who finds himself as lost as
we.Mostly though, this is a director-driven
picture involving extravagant and bizarre set pieces, a wax museum seemingly
comprised of real people, the aforementioned cake head and anachronistic transposition
of Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets, making this a
most peculiar smorgasbord of targets for social satire.Seen now, the film is a testament to the shifting
social mores of when it was made as well as a sign of themes to come in the
director’s emerging filmography.
Originally submitted to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign
Language Film despite not being accepted, Zerograd like most of
Shakhnazarov’s works flew under the radar of western filmgoers unaccustomed to
the regional satire being depicted therein.
In the years since, however, as Mosfilm has sought to bring Shakhnazarov’s
enigmatic and multidimensional filmography to a more global following
compounded with the efforts of Deaf Crocodile Films and their new 2K restored
limited edition blu-ray release, Zerograd now has a chance to be seen more
widely and assessed as a signature example of Russian film surrealism. If nothing else, it represents a great entry
point into what would or wouldn’t become the director’s next two movies The
Assassin of the Tsar and Full Moon Day. Another finely tuned masterpiece from one of
Russia’s greatest living directors.
