When thinking of Soviet filmmaking, most of the movies that made it to America were either deep intellectual epics or three-hour dramas about the glory of a grain harvest. The movies that Moscow approved from that ’50s to the early ’80s were either profound or dull. The one thing that you never heard about was, “It’s hilarious!” Zerograd is a remarkable because it showed the absurdist nature of way things worked in the Soviet Union. There had been the stories about the insanity of how things worked behind the Iron Curtain told by artists who fled the communists over the decades. Zerograd was different since it was made inside the USSR. This is a film that didn’t make the communist citizens look noble, honest and hardworking. The film can only be seen as proof that things were lightening up under Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika programs.
Things start off like a normal Soviet movie with Alexey Varakin (From the Life of a Chief of the Criminal Police‘s Leonid Filatov), an engineer visiting a factory in a remote town in order to check on the air conditioning units his Moscow based company has ordered. He gets off the train, hails a cab and gets checked into his rather depressing hotel room with an uninspiring view. He walks to the mechanical plant and has a problem trying to get his pass to visit his contact in the plant. This seems like usual corporate screw ups. Things seem normal until Alexey walks into the director’s office and finds the secretary naked outside of a pair of heels. The director has never noticed the lack of a dress code in his waiting room. He also has no idea that Alexey’s company has been dealing with them for 15 years. Alexey needs to speak to the chief engineer about altering the next batch of units. This is when things get even weirder since the director also has no clue that his chief engineer has been dead for 8 months. But he promises to get ahold of the chief engineer and make the alternations happen. Alexey drops by a restaurant for a quick meal that gets bizarre when he’s given a cake in the shape of his own head. This is a life-like cake of Alexey down to the mustache. He is very uncomfortable watching his face gets sliced up. Things get more freakish when he doesn’t take a bite. The restaurant turns into a crime scene. After being interviewed by the cops, Alexey wants to get back to Moscow. He can’t get a train ticket home. He keeps finding out the oddities of the town including an underground museum and a magical tree. But will he ever find a way back to Moscow?
Zerograd is a film that could only have been produced during the Gorbachev era. There’s no way this could get the blessings of the party in previous regimes. Does Putin tolerate absurdist humor? Of course not. A film like this would fall out a window followed by the director in today’s Moscow. The best part is the absurdist and paranoid humor in the film stands up after all this time. This isn’t a relic of the Soviet era. The jokes and the bizarre situations don’t come off as lame or out of fashion. You don’t ask, “Was this really what they considered funny?” The film remains hilarious thanks to Leonid Filatov’s outstanding performance as the engineer stuck this in the crazy town. His expression when he’s served a cake shaped like his head is priceless. He also plays the even deeper chilling scenes right such as when Alexey is having a dinner in a family’s home. The young sweet child warns him at the table that he will never leave this town. The boy tells the guest what will be chiseled on his tombstone including knowing his date of birth. This scene adds to the Kafkaesque weirdness on the screen as the engineer fights the feeling that he’s doomed. It builds up the tension that at any moment the absurd will snap leaving him stuck in a horror film. Zerograd takes advantage of being made at just the right time and going beyond that time.
The Video is 1.33:1 full frame. The transfer is a 2K restoration from the original 35mm picture restoration done by Mosfilm. The images look great in the underground museum. The Audio is DTS-HD MA 2.0. You’ll clearly hear the score by Eduard Artemyev who had previously worked on Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, Mirror and Stalker. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by film historian Samm Deighan talks about how the film was received when it came out. This includes people who weren’t happy that Zerograd dared to mock Soviet citizens. There is talk of cast and crew of the film.
Interview with Karen Shakhnazarov (57:05) is by Dennis Bartok. The director talks about his early days at film school and working on his first films. During a ceremony, Karen found himself sitting next to Frederico Fellini and acted as the director’s interpreter during the meal. He gets into how they made Zerograd. Karen is the director general of Mosfilms. Karen answers in English.
Illustrated Booklet with essay by Chris D. on the movie.
Deaf Crocodile presents Zerograd. Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov. Screenplay by Karen Shakhnazarov & Aleksandr Borodyansky. Starring Leonid Filatov, Oleg Basilashvili, Vladimir Menshov, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan & Yevgeniy Yevstigneyev. Running Time: Rating: Unrated. Release Date: March 11, 2025.
