City Zero

CITY ZERO, a Soviet feature from Mosfilm, opens with a sly gag. The first image we see is predictably grey and depressing. Just what we expect from Soviet cinema. The camera has a browbeaten weariness as if it's done so much state propaganda that it's simply given up. We spot a grey little bureaucrat with a weasely mustache carrying a briefcase. We clutch our heads in pain thinking that we'll have to watch him for the next two hours. We follow the grey little bureaucrat into a suffocating office where a secretary asks what his business is. The bureaucrat states he's arrived to talk about air conditioners. He stares at the secretary--she's completely naked.

Aft...