Broken and sick, but sincere post-Soviet cinema In fact, this is a tragicomic farce based on the story of Viktor Erofeev “Life with an Idiot”. In many ways, the manner of such a production very much resembles the style of Alexei Herman - the elder with his "Khrustalev, the machine!", and the style of schizophrenic-expressive films of Kira Muratova, whom the same German always loved to the point of unconsciousness.
In content, it is a fiercely cruel manifesto of self-deprecation of one lost intellectual who releases his idiotic essence, and she brutally rapes - first his wife, then himself. Plus, individual allegorical details clearly show that all this is happening during the ongoing civil war in the country, which will never end.
In some ways, this is a kind of sadistic summary of the image of Klim Samgin - from the magnificent and very gloomy series "Life of Klim Samgin", shot by Viktor Titov based on Gorky's novel. In something quite biographical for Rogozhkin, the connection of his interest in the dark and dark period of the history of the Bolshevik revolution in his country. Interest, which he later mercilessly embodied in an even more fierce and terrible his film “Chekist”.
8 out of 10