又名: City Zero / Zero City / Gorod Zero / Zerograd
导演: 卡连·沙赫纳扎罗夫
编剧: Aleksandr Borodyansky 卡连·沙赫纳扎罗夫
主演: 里奥尼德·费拉托夫 奥列格·巴希拉什维利 弗拉基米尔·缅绍夫 阿尔缅·哲加尔哈尼扬
类型: 剧情
制片国家/地区: 苏联
上映日期: 1988-10(西班牙巴利亚多里德国际电影节)
片长: 103 分钟 IMDb: tt0095244 豆瓣评分:7.8 下载地址:迅雷下载
前苏联的一部充满了荒诞、超现实主义的作品,最后代表权力的橡树倒塌并被众人随意分解预示着苏联解体的危机,大量的细节隐喻使之看起来晦涩无比,被压抑的情感一如全片乌云压顶的画面一样让人喘不上气,以致于在期待着高潮到来的这种心情就变成了,“还没开始吗?”“已经结束了。”
个人主义和国家利益的挣扎是主角的矛盾根源,开放的前进与保守的拒绝是整个小镇荒唐古怪的罪魁祸首,不能并存的情感和理智让小镇里的检察官都坦诚“其实自己很羡慕罪犯可以犯罪”,这样的小镇,不用外来力量去摧毁,自己走两步就散了。
影片摄影很有特色,前半段始终沉浸在“黑云压城城欲摧”的气氛里,除了一出场便惊艳四方的美女裸体之外几乎无明亮的色调,直到回忆的潮水蔓延到了怪镇上的第一个跳摇滚舞的人,浅灰色系像复活了一般被不知名的天才泼上了色彩,眼睛终于不再窒息:穿着花裙子涂着腮红的少女和年轻英俊的中尉在老实的人群中大跳摇滚舞。然后两人双双被开除,中尉被杀,少女哑巴,此后经年,再无瓜葛。见证过这一切的少男少女们终于为夫为妇,再次聚集到一家以中尉名字为名的摇滚乐舞厅里,穿上了当年不敢想象的奇装艳服,大跳摇滚舞。时代真是一幅扭曲的油画啊。
电影里许多片段都令人印象深刻:办公室外全裸的秘书;主角眼睁睁看着以自己脸为原型的蛋糕被切成一块块的;因为客人不吃自己的蛋糕而自杀(或被杀)的厨子;想尽办法也离不开的小镇;全部使用真人当蜡像的博物馆(主角应该没有发现,不知道是资金问题还是导演有意为之);最最最最最让人难忘的是史上最难堪的自杀:曾经以伤风败俗开除掉两个跳摇滚舞的年轻人的检察官,面对新开张的摇滚舞厅,想着被杀死的第一个跳摇滚舞的人,愤怒的走上台去,关上摇滚乐,在众目睽睽之下开枪自杀......当然,他没成功......再多按几下......还特么没成功......检查检查枪,没毛病啊......看看下面的观众,都在沉默的瞪着他,狠狠心又开了几枪......就是不成功......然后哭着跑掉了......这是个什么残酷的世道啊,连死都不从人愿!
English Title: Zerograd
Original Title: Gorod Zero
Year: 1988
Country: Soviet Union
Language: Russian
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Mystery
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Screenwriters: Karen Shakhnazarov, Aleksandr Borodyanskiy
Music: Eduard Artemev
Cinematography: Nikolay Nemolyaev
Editing: Lidiya Milioti
Cast:
Leonid Filatov
Oleg Basilashvili
Vladimir Menshov
Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Yuriy Sherstnyov
Evgeniy Evstigneev
Pyotr Shcherbakov
Aleksey Zharkov
Tatyana Khvostikova
Lena Zhanik
Aleksandr Bespalyy
Rating: 7.7/10
Eventuated before the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union, Karen Shakhnazarov’s ZEROGRAD, his fifth feature, is a biting, if none too gripping allegory of a great nation’s impending about-turn from totalitarian statism to Western-influenced democracy.
Marooned in this Zerograd (“zero city”) is an engineer from Moscow, Alexey Varakin (Filatov), the film starts with him disembarking from a train, little does he know, he has descended into a rabbit hole. Alexey is an awfully nice soft touch, the straight arrow type that serves as audience’s proxy, and in the city, what he encounters is a bureaucratic, bizarre, authoritarian clutter of confusion and frustration, things are compounded after he becomes a key witness of a suicide (or is it? conspiracy theory is floated but unresolved), he is officially instructed not to skip town, and even condones the advice from the prosecutor that he should assume the identity of the dead man’s son (what’s the logic here?), so that he can be brought firsthand to see the declaration of a new epoch, and he might run but will he escape? All is foretold by an angelic young boy he meets before.
Shakhnazarov is political in quite an equivocal way, the old guard is represented by the prosecutor (Menshov, strenuously emoting conviction and later, humiliation with propriety), who holds forth on the lofty grail of communism (which is utterly intelligible and persuasive), but has no sway in front of the head of the city council (Shcherbakov) and the celebrated writer (Basilashvili), even his heroic suicidal act is a flameout, the Procrustean wind of change is irrefragable.
But is Shakhnazarov an ardent advocate of democracy? Judging solely from this film, it is safe to say that he retains a leery eye, he might have a liberal mind, but liberty isn’t something that can be pursued in its purest form, the Soviet Union is creaky and buckles under misrule, however, it has an immemorial spirit, an inherent statehood that its boogie-woogie children shall never forget.
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 dismallyreduced 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.
referential entries: Pavel Jurácek’s CASE FOR A ROOKIE HANGMAN (1970, 8.0/10); Emil Loteanu’s THE SHOOTING PARTY (1978, 6.4/10).