Zerograd

Details

This listing is for the standard edition Blu-ray. The limited edition slipcover (designed by Haunt Love) was limited to 2,000 units and is sold out. The two versions are identical, aside from the slipcover.

Deaf Crocodile is an L.A.-based Distribution + Restoration company focused on New, Independent, Lost/Unseen and World Cinema with a special interest in Animation, Cult Horror + Fantasy, LGBTQ films, and the work of neglected and underrepresented Filmmakers from across the spectrum. The company was founded by film restoration expert Craig Rogers and distributor / exhibitor Dennis Bartok. Vinegar Syndrome’s sister company, OCN Distribution, is thrilled to be representing Deaf Crocodile's brand new line of home video releases! 

Part Kafka, part Agatha Christie and part Monty Python, director Karen Shakhnazarov’s surreal satire of Communism follows an Everyman engineer named Varakin (Leonid Filatov) who arrives in a remote city where nothing quite makes sense, but everyone acts as if it does. He’s quickly drawn into the investigation of the suicide (or possibly murder?) of a local restaurant chef, Nikolaev – who may (or may not) be Varakin’s missing father. The more complex and absurdist the mystery becomes, the more poignant and plaintive Varakin’s predicament – “I have to get back to Moscow,” he pleads to no avail. Along the way we’re treated to a bizarre and wonderful sideshow of non sequiturs out of a Wes Anderson film, including an underground museum filled with a thousand years of real and imagined Russian history (“Here’s the pistol with which Urusov shot the False Dimitry II.”) Frozen in time, frozen far beneath the surface, the waxwork figures are strangely beautiful and forlorn, like Shakhnazarov’s marvelous and enigmatic satire of Soviet bureaucracy. With music by the great Eduard Artemyev (SOLARIS, STALKER).

directed by: Karen Shakhnazarov
starring: Leonid Filatov, Oleg Basilashvili, Vladimir Menshov, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Evgeniy Evstigneev
1988 / 103 min / 1.37:1 / Russian DTS-HD MA 2.0

Additional info:

• Region A Blu-ray
• New 2K restoration from the original 35mm picture and sound elements by Mosfilm
• New video interview with director/co-writer Karen Shakhnazarov, moderated by Dennis Bartok of Deaf Crocodile Films
• New commentary track by film journalist Samm Deighan (Diabolique magazine, Daughters of Darkness podcast)
• New booklet essay by filmmaker, writer, punk musician and genre expert Chris D (The Flesh Eaters; author of Outlaw Masters of Japanese Film)
• English subtitles