Khrustalyov, Get my Car!

The film derives its title from the legendary phrase by Beria that he spoke at the moment when Stalin died. Everything in the film is deceptive, starting with the fact that Khrustalyov (from the title) does not appear on screen at all. Instead, we see an army doctor, whose life was first shaped by the absurdity of Stalinist Moscow and then, after the notorious affair of the Jewish doctors, by the nightmare of punishment camp. Then he was brought back to the capital, because he was the only one who could save the dying leader. The epic action remains restricted to a few symbolic days and to an equally conditional space, namely that of the country as one huge communal dwelling: both hospital and prison. The first half is a fantasmagoria of images and people reminiscent of Bulgakov, Charms, even Joyce. German breaks with the pseudo-classical tradition and rejects the melodramatic epic. The second part comprises at least two brilliant scenes: the death of Stalin and an episode in the truck, when the hero is raped by a bunch of camp prisoners with the handle of a spade. German does not want to distort history into a melodrama. He pays a price for it. Spielberg turned the Holocaust into a sentimental fairytale, Roberto Benigni into vaudeville. On the brink of the new millennium, German confronts us with the historic truth.(Andrei Plakhov is freelance film critic in Moscow and programmer for the Sochi International Film Festival.)