I was quite surprised to see this another masterpiece from Karen Shahnazarov. This is real fantasy with the good presence of mystics and social criticism. The main character is an ordinary engineer who comes to an obscure town to fix some business questions. But instead of it he faces very gloomy and weird freedom there. The real hymn of irrationality and rock music. This film looks more like a nightmare dream of a narrow-minded person who comes to some other reality and succeeds to go away in the end. One can see some nudity, psycho- violence and questioning here, but the meaning lies beyond the moral standards of that time in in the USSR.
11 Reviews
Weird film begging to be released on DVD!
ajji-212 December 2003
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).
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).
Cinema Omnivore - Zerograd (1988) 7.7/10
lasttimeisaw8 January 2021
"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
read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks
From Russia, Kafka in Wonderland
bazarov2431 August 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Sitting in a nearly empty hotel dining room, a baffled engineer named Aleksei watches the waiter wheel a dessert cart to his table. "I didn't order dessert," Aleksei says, but this one was custom-made: a cake that stares back at him in the precise size, shape and color of his own head, right down to the lucid, light-blue eyes. Refusing a slice of his own nose, he ignores the waiter's warning that "the chef will kill himself." Bad choice. Even as he heads for the door, Aleksei hears a shot and turns to see the insulted pastry maker keel over right in front of the happily playing band.
This is just the start of the absurd intrigue in "City Zero," a deliciously cheerful satire about the legacy of Stalin, personal identity and the political importance of rock-and-roll.
Though its plot is Kafkaesque, its setting seems closer to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland than to Moscow. Karen Shakhnazarov, the director and co-writer, establishes a tone that is eerie without being sinister, and goes on to invent a story that is comic and fluent yet full of dangerous turns.
Arriving in a small town for a simple business meeting, Aleksei gets off the train from Moscow in beautiful, misty predawn light and total isolation. When he shows up for his meeting, he finds a secretary inexplicably naked at her typewriter, behavior no one else finds strange. He and the film get off to a shaky start here, but the satire is never again so sophomoric, the tone never again so jokey and wrong.
Instead, Aleksei is confronted with the twin cake and before long by investigators who wonder about his connection to Nikolayev, the dead chef he had never seen before. Why, for instance, did the chef have a photograph of Aleksei, which was inscribed "To my dear father," and signed "Makhmud"?
Aleksei's calm, baffled demeanor in the face of what seems like a town-wide conspiracy sets the film's effective, deadpan tone. He tries to leave, only to be told at the lonely train station that all the tickets to Moscow are sold. He takes a taxi to the next town in search of another train station, and instead finds a museum whose main attractions are a Trojan sarcophagus and a rock-and-roll tribute to the first couple in town who dared dance to "Rock Around the Clock." The dancing hero, then a 27-year-old secret police lieutenant, was Nikolayev.
Soon the stranger in town is lured into its ongoing political feud, between those who live in the Stalinist past and those who are desperate to catch up with the present. "The rehabilitation of rock-and-roll is of great political significance," the mayor tells Aleksei. Just pretend you're Makhmud, suggests the friendly president of the writers' association, so the compliant newcomer helps inaugurate the Nikolayev rock-and-roll club, standing on a stage between large photographs of his beloved dead father and of Elvis. This does him no good with the public prosecutor, who believes that Nikolayev was murdered and that rock-and-roll is an American devil that will ruin the country.
Mr. Shakhnazarov is a vibrant film maker who keeps introducing new and more troubling characters without letting the film's comic energy slow down. The lithe young woman who danced so infamously with Nikolayev 30 years before (seen in a vivid flashback) shows up at Aleksei's hotel room with her grown son and a tape player. Now sad, heavy and drab, she touchingly wants to dance with Aleksei, who, she says, is so much like Nikolayev he has "kept our ideals alive."
Gradually, Aleksei is robbed of his freedom and his identity. Yet even as he struggles to reclaim them he remains a figure of fun, less a symbol of his country than a hapless hero who has fallen down a rabbit hole.
In fact, the political allegory of "City Zero" is never as heavy as its Kafkaesque hero and its rock-and-roll feud make it sound. The film works perfectly well as a fast, funny tale of mistaken identity. But it has a resonance beyond its quick wit, for the style shrewdly mirrors the subject. The tone says, "It's only rock-and-roll," but "City Zone" gleefully depicts the innocuous mask political tyranny can wear.
City Zero.
This is just the start of the absurd intrigue in "City Zero," a deliciously cheerful satire about the legacy of Stalin, personal identity and the political importance of rock-and-roll.
Though its plot is Kafkaesque, its setting seems closer to Lewis Carroll's Wonderland than to Moscow. Karen Shakhnazarov, the director and co-writer, establishes a tone that is eerie without being sinister, and goes on to invent a story that is comic and fluent yet full of dangerous turns.
Arriving in a small town for a simple business meeting, Aleksei gets off the train from Moscow in beautiful, misty predawn light and total isolation. When he shows up for his meeting, he finds a secretary inexplicably naked at her typewriter, behavior no one else finds strange. He and the film get off to a shaky start here, but the satire is never again so sophomoric, the tone never again so jokey and wrong.
Instead, Aleksei is confronted with the twin cake and before long by investigators who wonder about his connection to Nikolayev, the dead chef he had never seen before. Why, for instance, did the chef have a photograph of Aleksei, which was inscribed "To my dear father," and signed "Makhmud"?
Aleksei's calm, baffled demeanor in the face of what seems like a town-wide conspiracy sets the film's effective, deadpan tone. He tries to leave, only to be told at the lonely train station that all the tickets to Moscow are sold. He takes a taxi to the next town in search of another train station, and instead finds a museum whose main attractions are a Trojan sarcophagus and a rock-and-roll tribute to the first couple in town who dared dance to "Rock Around the Clock." The dancing hero, then a 27-year-old secret police lieutenant, was Nikolayev.
Soon the stranger in town is lured into its ongoing political feud, between those who live in the Stalinist past and those who are desperate to catch up with the present. "The rehabilitation of rock-and-roll is of great political significance," the mayor tells Aleksei. Just pretend you're Makhmud, suggests the friendly president of the writers' association, so the compliant newcomer helps inaugurate the Nikolayev rock-and-roll club, standing on a stage between large photographs of his beloved dead father and of Elvis. This does him no good with the public prosecutor, who believes that Nikolayev was murdered and that rock-and-roll is an American devil that will ruin the country.
Mr. Shakhnazarov is a vibrant film maker who keeps introducing new and more troubling characters without letting the film's comic energy slow down. The lithe young woman who danced so infamously with Nikolayev 30 years before (seen in a vivid flashback) shows up at Aleksei's hotel room with her grown son and a tape player. Now sad, heavy and drab, she touchingly wants to dance with Aleksei, who, she says, is so much like Nikolayev he has "kept our ideals alive."
Gradually, Aleksei is robbed of his freedom and his identity. Yet even as he struggles to reclaim them he remains a figure of fun, less a symbol of his country than a hapless hero who has fallen down a rabbit hole.
In fact, the political allegory of "City Zero" is never as heavy as its Kafkaesque hero and its rock-and-roll feud make it sound. The film works perfectly well as a fast, funny tale of mistaken identity. But it has a resonance beyond its quick wit, for the style shrewdly mirrors the subject. The tone says, "It's only rock-and-roll," but "City Zone" gleefully depicts the innocuous mask political tyranny can wear.
City Zero.
unknown little treasure
suicidea18 March 2004
An unknown little treasure of the Soviet cinema, based on the story of a man sent to a town where nothing seems real. Definitely a feast for lovers of true cinema, while slow at times, is an intriguing, minimalistic piece of work. In fact this slowness, added to the lack of music and dialog at parts, becomes a plus for the film in a strange way. The whole movie has a dreamlike, Eraserhead-ish atmosphere, so slyly given that you often feel like you're watching someone's dream on the screen.
I can't help but agree that, as one other reviewer has mentioned, there are quite a number of references to the Soviet way of life of the period, but naturally they may be hard to catch for everyone. Still, this does not detach the audience.
Certainly not for fans of hollywood crap, but movie fans who want to see something unique should see Zero City.
I can't help but agree that, as one other reviewer has mentioned, there are quite a number of references to the Soviet way of life of the period, but naturally they may be hard to catch for everyone. Still, this does not detach the audience.
Certainly not for fans of hollywood crap, but movie fans who want to see something unique should see Zero City.
A bizarre view into Soviet reality
jamesglu11 March 2000
I saw this film while living in Moscow in the late 80s/early 90s and it truly summarizes a lot of the bizarreness of day-to-day Soviet life. The engineer visits this small provincial town where nothing is normal and he encounters all sorts of weird people. It's a very absurd story, but if you understand the way the old USSR worked, it makes a strange sort of sense.
Zero City
BandSAboutMovies6 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Director Karen Shakhnazarov said, "In my opinion, the essence of the film Zero City is that a person mythologizes history, distorts it. And, constantly distorting history, he distorts his own life. In essence, we do not know history - it is, in principle, unknowable for us. We constantly use the past to achieve some goals in our modern life. But in this way, by distorting our past, we also distort our present. This concerns not only the USSR and not only Russia. This also applies to the United States, and France, and China, and Brazil, and in general everyone. This is common. For me, this topic is related to the very existence of man. This is the main theme of Zero City for me."
Deaf Crocodile Films Co-Founder and Head of Distribution Dennis Bartok summed up this film so well when he called it "...a fascinating mix of genres: part mystery, part science fiction, part political satire, part surreal comedy. When the film was released in 1988, the Soviet Union was only three years away from breaking up - and it's impossible not to look at Zerograd as a metaphor for the U. S. S. R. in its last stages, with Leonid Filatov's brilliant, baleful performance as the Everyman engineer who gets caught in the Moebius strip of Zero City, unable to go backwards to Moscow and unable to go forwards. Just like the Soviet Union itself at that point in history."
Craig Rogers, Deaf Crocodile Co-Founder and Head of Post-Production and Restoration, added "Zerograd comes from the same D. N. A. As Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Surreal, wild fun. I'm so glad this film will finally be seen by a North American audience!"
An engineer named Varakin (Leonid Filatov) has come to a remote city where nothing makes sense, even if everyone acts like it does. He takes part in the investigation of the murder -- or suicide -- of a chef named Nikolaev, who may be his father and who shot himself after Varakin refused to eat a cake modeled after his own face.
Varalkin is soon trapped in a place where the real and unreal exist in the same plane of reality, where a receptionist does her job in the nude, prosecutors seek to commit crimes of their own and strange museums fail to tell you what is true and what is an illusion.
I'm so excited that this movie is now available in America, because it's really something, a mix of strange bureaucracy, rock 'n roll making its way to Russian and just plain weirdness.
Deaf Crocodile Films Co-Founder and Head of Distribution Dennis Bartok summed up this film so well when he called it "...a fascinating mix of genres: part mystery, part science fiction, part political satire, part surreal comedy. When the film was released in 1988, the Soviet Union was only three years away from breaking up - and it's impossible not to look at Zerograd as a metaphor for the U. S. S. R. in its last stages, with Leonid Filatov's brilliant, baleful performance as the Everyman engineer who gets caught in the Moebius strip of Zero City, unable to go backwards to Moscow and unable to go forwards. Just like the Soviet Union itself at that point in history."
Craig Rogers, Deaf Crocodile Co-Founder and Head of Post-Production and Restoration, added "Zerograd comes from the same D. N. A. As Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Surreal, wild fun. I'm so glad this film will finally be seen by a North American audience!"
An engineer named Varakin (Leonid Filatov) has come to a remote city where nothing makes sense, even if everyone acts like it does. He takes part in the investigation of the murder -- or suicide -- of a chef named Nikolaev, who may be his father and who shot himself after Varakin refused to eat a cake modeled after his own face.
Varalkin is soon trapped in a place where the real and unreal exist in the same plane of reality, where a receptionist does her job in the nude, prosecutors seek to commit crimes of their own and strange museums fail to tell you what is true and what is an illusion.
I'm so excited that this movie is now available in America, because it's really something, a mix of strange bureaucracy, rock 'n roll making its way to Russian and just plain weirdness.
Impressive
hipopotam17 March 2006
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.
Story of everybody life
maltian4 November 2010
This movie is a fable of our life - we eventually - every single of us - few exceptions happen, arrive to unknown place and get trapped there to never - most of us break free. And the rest of our life we spend watching without any disbelief at idiocy and absurd around us and abandoning any hope to take a train to Moscow. This movie is Checkov's Cherry Orchard retold in today's words with memory of absurd history of XX cent. So sweet for a Western heart explanation of Soviet system as "oppressive communist regime" has nothing to do with reality - oppression was not coming from KGB, it was in the hopeless idiotism, status quo, absolute stagnation. Sci Fi experiment, the one word which describes the life in USSR is "boring". We know that without sensory inputs, deprived of them our brain starts to generate illusions. This is what you see in this "movie", I put it in commas because for me it is not a fiction movie, it is a documentary.
Stress dream
hof-426 August 2022
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.
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.
Too strange to hold much meaning unless you're a historian
blott2319-118 March 2021
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.
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