While returning to Leningrad from a visit to his brother, Professor Artyom's car breaks down and he finds assistance at an isolated farmhouse occupied by Alexey, his wife, a Vietnamese laborer, and a stranger who wanders around the farm. When his car is repaired, Artyom leaves, drunk on moonshine, and students Valera and Angelika arrive. After Valera gets drunk, the stranger abducts Angelika.
Acting
Poluyan's dead-eyed menace is unforgettable.
Direction
Balabanov's clinical refusal to flinch.
Production
Authentic 1984 Soviet decay, suffocatingly real.
Director
Aleksei Balabanov
Agniya Kuznetsova
Angelika
Aleksey Poluyan
Captain Zhurov
Leonid Gromov
Artem, Professor of Scientific Atheism
Aleksey Serebryakov
Aleksey
Leonid Bichevin
Valera
Natalya Akimova
Antonina
Mikhail Skryabin
Sunka
Dmitriy Kubasov
Slavik
Yuri Stepanov
Mikhail, Colonel
Aleksandr Bashirov
Skinny Alcoholic
Konstantin Balakirev
Kolya Gorbunov
Alyona Falaleyeva
Liza
Andrey Mokeev
Naboyev
Aleksandr Mosin
Sergeant
Anzhelika Nevolina
Artem's wife
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Banned from several Russian film festivals; Balabanov reportedly screened it once then withdrew it from circulation himself.
The 'scientific atheism' professor embodies Brezhnev-era intellectual cowardice—his drunken stupor mirrors the USSR's moral unconsciousness before collapse. The 1984 setting is no accident: Orwell's year, Soviet stagnation's peak.
RU
