

Two men vanish—one rich, one weird. Only one corpse explodes. Soviet bureaucracy at its finest.
In the capital of a European country, two people have gone missing. One of them is Theodore Amsted, a successful official, a family man, and a fairly wealthy person. The other is Michael Moginson, a strange, reclusive oddball living in poverty. Soon, a body is found at a military training ground, the victim of a bomb explosion. The police begin an investigation...
Acting
Velikhov plays two men with eerie, understated precision.
Writing
Wicked Soviet satire where paperwork outwits everyone.
Direction
Three directors somehow create one coherent deadpan nightmare.
Director
Alina Kazmina
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during the Thaw era, this slyly critiques Soviet class structures while pretending to be simple entertainment—censors missed the knife.
Three directors were assigned because the original fell ill; the triple credit became a running joke in Soviet film circles.