Released the year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Karen Shakhnazarov’s absurdist satire Zerograd captures the disorientation and terror of gradually coming to realize that you live in a reality you no longer recognize. Arriving in a remote city in order to get a replacement for his company’s dysfunctional air conditioning unit, ordinary worker Alexei (Leonid Filatov) expects a short, uneventful visit before returning to Moscow. But when he runs into a secretary working in the nude at the manufacturing plant and witnesses a chef committing suicide after Alexei refused to eat a slice of cake that’s a full-size replica of his head, our protagonist is increasingly confronted with a world whose rules, behaviors, and morals are patently absurd. And, it turns out, he’s the only one that sees them as such.
Derek Smith Review: Karen Shakhnazarov’s Sci-Fi Mystery ‘Zerograd’ on Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray
