Cidade Zero

I haven't seen this movie on DVD and that's a pity. For those, who are Lynch fans, this will be a pleasant surprise. I watched the movie years ago and I found it brilliant - great script, interesting story, crazy city, and the scene in the restaurant is something to remember... I think this is the best film of this director, though I haven't seen many. It's a surreal story of a man, trapped in an non existing city, surrounded by its habitants, who linger between memories and reality, death and vegetation. As time passes he realizes, that there is no use to fight the city, there is no escape from its hug. I recommend the movie strongly.

Gorod Zero = Zerograd = City Zero opens with engineer Alexei Varakin (from the Moscow Engineering Works) arriving by train at a small provincial town. It is the dawn of a rainy, depressing day; the station is deserted and no other passenger alights. The only other things that move are a dog that sniffs Varakin's suitcase and the only taxi in town looking for a fare.

After checking in a seedy hotel Varakin waits until morning and walks to his destination, a factory that supplies air conditioners to his company. At the checkpoint nobody knows about his visit and there is no pass to enter the factory. After a strained telephone conversation he reaches the offices and introduces himself to the manager, who has no idea of the reason for Varakin's visit. Puzzled, the manager calls the chief engineer and is informed that he died months ago, plainly without the manager noticing,

Obviously the initial scenes evoke Kafka, K. Arriving at (the vicinity of) The Castle and there are other whiffs of Kafka such as The Process in the second half but this movie is something else. In the rest of the film Varakin is the protagonist of a series of happenings, each absurd in itself (such as a secretary working stark naked) but having a certain crazy internal logic and connecting to each other with the twisted logic of dreams. In one, episode he happens upon a museum absurdly placed in an inaccessible spot in the countryside and built in an abandoned mine shaft. He is the only visitor and is given a tour by the museum curator. Varakin is informed that the origins of the town connect with errant Trojans and with a subsequent occupation by Roman legions. Another treasury of the museum: Attila's bed, where he raped some queen or other. There are dioramas everywhere illustrating distorted history, and the wax figures seem to be live people; some of the dioramas are accompanied by gaudy music and kitschy light shows. Varakin is frustrated at every episode; he is prevented from returning to his family in Moscow and ii accused of transgressions of which he knows nothing.

Some of the Soviet reality of the time is imbedded in the dream; the absurd logic of a decaying and malfunctioning political system, the inert and unmovable bureaucracy, the repression of popular trends and music (rock-and-roll). The overall effect is that of a stress dream built out of a distorted reality where the dreamer is thrust in situations he doesn't understand or knows how to get out of.

By all means watch this movie. It has not reached the commercial streaming services but you can find a pristine copy with subtitles in You Tube, courtesy of distributor Mosfilm.

Sadly I'm not a big fan of surrealist films. Zerograd (or City Zero) is a film that feels like it takes place in a strange unnatural world. It has some grounding in the fact that the main character seems to recognize how everything is strange, so he's going on this journey with us, but the lack of any cohesive story structure was more than I could bear. I do recognize that there is a purpose underlying all of this, because Zerograd was made at a particular time in Russian history when things were changing dramatically, and the filmmakers were trying to make a point about the strange new world they were experiencing. However, since I don't have a strong connection to that time and place in history, the film felt like nonsense. Not only did it feel strange, but it also had a somewhat frustrating storyline because the protagonist was being mistreated and forced into an unfair position. By the end, without spoiling anything, I was more annoyed than ever and it left me feeling hopeless. I'm confident that, for those who might have lived through these events or those who are interested in exploring the history of Post-Soviet Russia, Zerograd could be an interesting film to explore and analyze. For me, however, it was merely an oddity that meant very little. While there are strange and humorous moments that I'll never forget, that didn't make for a story that engaged me in any fashion.

I only saw one scene from this film, in the 'entertainment' section of a TV news magazine from India. the clip they showed was from a scene in a restaurant, and was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen, though with a strong sense of black humor, not gross or repulsive. here's the scene in brief (for those who want to read about it):

a guy dining by himself in a corner of the restaurant, is approached by the staff with dessert (covered by a lid). the guy tells them he didn't order any dessert, but the staff persist him to partake of it, saying that the cook made it specially for him and that if he doesn't eat it, the cook will be heartbroken. the guy glances over to the kitchen door, and sees the cook ready to slice his own throat with a knife. alarmed, he agrees to taste the dessert. the staff take off the lid, and the guy gasps as he sees his own head on the platter! the staff tells him to relax, as it is just a cake made to look like his head. they carve a slice off the top of the 'head' and serve it to the bewildered and scared guy.

I have been looking for this film since 1988, & hope it gets a DVD release soon. and based on just that one scene, I would recommend this film strongly to anyone who likes David Lynch, The Coen Bros, Franz Kafka, etc...or anyone who wants to see something different for a change (that is, after you are done with your Matrix, Charlie's Angels, etc. of course).

"If Shakhnazarov isn't a supernal filmmaker of visual finesse and most members of its male-dominant cast is far too grim and starchy by simply performing in rote, whereas their opposite sex is dismally reduced to peripheral ciphers, namely, a nude secretary, a glamorous woman functions merely as a chauffeur, or a voiceless matron whose sincere request of a dance is interrupted by the male intrusion, ZEROGRAD still remains a marvel to watch, not merely validated by Shakhnazarov's sensible political concerns and his homegrown compassion, but also, more impressively, by the astonishing tableaux vivants which crop up in the midstream and near the coda (offering ironic, anachronistic remarks to further muddy the waters), credited to its production designer Lyudmila Kusakova. It takes some time for viewers to discern that those museum exhibitions are actually actors in heterogeneous costumes and under maquillage, betrayed by tiny movements that are almost imperceptible, what billows out is that strange aroma of "magical surrealism" that is ever so fertile in the Eastern European cinema edifice."

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks