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ZEROGRAD (1988)
Label: Deaf Crocodile
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 101 Minutes 40 Seconds
Audio: Russian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Cast: Aleksandr Bespalyy, Aleksey Zharkov, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Arnold Ides, Elena Arzhanik, Evgeniy Evstigneev, Lena Zhanik,mLeonid Filatov, Oleg Basilashvili, Olga Konovalova, Pyotr Shcherbakov, Tatyana Khvostikova, Vladimir Menshov, Yevgeni Zernov, Yuriy Sherstnyov
The surreal Russian slow-burn thriller Zerograd (1988) is described on the as "Part Kafka, part Agatha Christie and part Monty Python" in the synopsis on the back of the new Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile, and that's a very apt description of director Karen Shakhnazarov's surreal satire of Communism wrapped up in a paranoid mystery. It follows a middle-management everyman named Alexey Varakin (Leonid Filatov) who arrives in a remote city, freshly arrived by train from Moscow, ostensibly to meet with the plant manager of an air conditioner manufacturer (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan) who supplies his boss's factory with AC units. It supposed to be a mundane business trip to request a small design change to make the units more efficient. There's a bit of miscommunication as the man he is to meet with seems to have no idea of his arrival, he is not expected, even though they have exchanged correspondence previously. Eventually he gains an audience with the department head, but he is put-off by the fact that the man's secretary is going about her business completely nude. Alexey politely mask his shock rather well, and when he calls attention the fact with the department head he seems to not have realized his secretary was in the nude, but also does not seem surprised by it either. The meeting goes nowhere after the department head reveals that their engineer who would oversee such a redesign died eight month earlier, something he himself seems unaware of, and has not yet been replaced.
Things only get stranger when Alexey leaves the plant and decides to get a bite to eat before returning to Moscow. He's seated at he restaurant and enjoys a small meal when the waiter beings out a desert he did not order - revealing a cake made into the exact image of his own head! The uncanny cake does not sit well with Alexey, especially after the waiter cuts off a slice, and he refuses it, with the waiter warning him that the chef has taken quite a liking to him, and if he refuses to eat the cake he might kill himself. As he gets up to leave the restaurant, having become agitated by the surreal experience, a shot rings out, and he turns around just int time to see the chef fall to the ground having shot himself in the heart with a pistol, seemingly having committed suicide.
There's a brief police inquiry with the local prosecutor (Vladimir Menshov, Nightwatch), during which the inspector theorizes that Alexey is the dead man's son, and that he was assassinated for reasons unknown. After being released he attempts to purchase a ticket to get the train back to Moscow, but is told that no tickets are available. He attempts then to take a taxi to the next station to catch the train there but the driver inexplicably drops him off just outside of town, it seems he is going to have a heck of a time getting out of this weird place. Now stuck Alexey finds himself further spiraling down a labyrinth of paranoia and surreal what-the-fuckery in a place where nothing seems to make sense.
He ends up at a wax museum of local history, there the museum director (Evgeniy Evstigneev) takes him on a trip through local history, touring a series of life-size dioramas, the wax figures are portrayed by actors, which gives the whole sequence a very bizarre vibe. It turns out one of the local figures was the man who killed himself at the restaurant, it seems back in 1957 he was the first of the village to dance to American rock 'n roll music. The caretaker finds him lodging in a nearby where the proprietor's young son out of nowhere tells him that he will never leave this town, and makes a prediction as to the year of his death in the future - things just keep getting curiouser and curiouser.
He eventually finds himself at a dance hall where the villagers are gathered at a dance-party complete with flashbacks to the 1957 rock n' roll dancing incident, with the young man dancing to the music of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley and the Comets "Rock Around the Clock". At the celebration there's a bizarre failed public suicide attempt followed by a celebratory gathering the locals at a hotel room which then moves into the nocturnal woods, where Alexey seems to have made a strange peace with his circumstances, only to discover he might get his chance to escape after all, but to where exactly?
The film is very Kafka-esque it's exploration of Soviet-era paranoia and conformity, our everyman protagonist a stranger in an increasingly strange land, but one where no one displays their unease overtly. The vibe brings to mind David Lynch and Terry Gilliam by way of an episode The Twilight Zone, it's suffocating and paranoia inducing, and just really weird and surreal, and if that sounds your sort of thing, as it is mine, this is just a wonderfully hallucinatory trip of a film.
Audio/Video: Zerograd (1988) arrives on Blu-ray from Eastern European cult-connoisseurs Deaf Crocodile in 108-p HD, a gorgeous presentation sourced from a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm picture and sound elements by Mosfilm. Grain is nicely resolved, there's copious amounts of texture and detail, and the colors look terrific, especially during the bizarre tour of the local history wax museum, and blacks during the dimmer and fog-shrouded exteriors scenes showcase nice shadow detail. Audio arrives via a well-balanced and clean sounding Russian DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo mix with optional English subtitles. The Russian dialogue sounded excellent to my ears, as did the tense and eerie score by Eduard Artemyev (Stalker).
Bonus materials are slim by the usual Deaf Crocodile standards but not insignificant by any means, these include a 57-min New Video Interview with director/co-writer Karen Shakhnazarov, moderated by Dennis Bartok of Deaf Crocodile Films; a New Audio Commentary by film journalist Samm Deighan from Diabolique magazine and the Daughters of Darkness podcast.
The single-disc release arrives in a clear full-height keepcase with a Reversible Wrap featuring what looks to be artwork based on the original movie poster, the same artwork on both sides with the option for English or Russian titles. Inside there's an 8-Page Illustrated Booklet with new essay by filmmaker, writer, punk musician and genre expert Chris D (The Flesh Eaters; author of Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film).
Special Features:
- New 2K restoration from the original 35mm picture and sound elements by Mosfilm
- New video interview with director/co-writer Karen Shakhnazarov, moderated by Dennis Bartok of Deaf Crocodile Films (57:04)
- New commentary track by film journalist Samm Deighan (Diabolique magazine, Daughters of Darkness podcast)
- 8-Page Booklet with new essay by filmmaker, writer, punk musician and genre expert Chris D (The Flesh Eaters; author of Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film)
- New English subtitles
Screenshots from the Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray:
Extras:
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