Within the framework of the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, July 12, the premiere of the film by Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov "The Petrovs in the Flu" took place.

The tape based on the novel by Alexei Salnikov participates in the main competition of the show.

The main characters are a car mechanic and comic book artist Petrov (Semyon Serzin), his ex-wife (Chulpan Khamatova) and their son (Vladislav Semiletkov).

Shortly before the New Year, they catch the flu, and the surrounding reality is filled with surrealism and absurdity.

The picture was appreciated by some foreign critics.

They note that the tape, which deals with the flu, has acquired unexpected relevance against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic (although it was filmed earlier).

According to the author of The Wrap, Ben Kroll, this film is at the same time "the embodiment of a certain hunger caused by the lockdown for experience and opportunity."

A number of authors point out that in Serebrennikov's painting it is difficult to separate reality from the perception of the characters, changed under the influence of the disease.

For example, the Screen Daliy columnist Demetrios Mateu characterizes Petrov's consciousness as "a dark mixture of fever and flight of imagination."

He also notes that "the narrative is constantly bouncing between characters, places and eras, often within the same frame or magical cuts."

At the same time, Mateu believes that the flu does not make the most significant adjustments to the image of the city and its inhabitants, since things are not very good there even without the flu.

"Petrov's journey through the city at night with a rebel friend Igor (Yuri Kolokolnikov), begun in the cabin of a borrowed hearse, will clearly demonstrate the fine line between reality and delirium," the critic writes.

  • Shot from the film "The Petrovs in the Flu"

  • © Shot from the film "The Petrovs in the Flu" (2021)

Ben Kroll echoes him.

According to the observations of the latter, in the first part of the film, filled with long shots with special effects, fiction and reality constantly replace each other.

Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter notes that sometimes it becomes unclear who is in the frame: Petrov Jr. or his father as a child.

“A hallucination-like and confusing, but masterfully executed and mesmerizing picture constantly switches between time periods, Yekaterinburg's districts and the memories of its characters, often literally in the space of one frame,” says the expert.

Critics also pay attention to the depressing image of the environment in which the heroes exist.

Ben Kroll notes that the film has a well-developed style that requires a certain level of skill from the filmmakers.

The Petrovs in the Flu is an outstanding cinematic creation and style exercise that uses his virtuoso technique as a blunt weapon against the audience.

An unsightly excursion into the post-Soviet heart of darkness, "The Petrovs in the Flu" practically take their viewer to "weak", knowing full well that the film was shot too skillfully to look away, "he writes.

Both Kroll and Variety columnist Guy Lodge produce highly dynamic visuals.

"The Petrovs in the Flu" rush headlong through the extravagant surreal image of Yekaterinburg, seized by a maddening flu epidemic.

This is Serebrennikov's bully and exciting comeback at his best, ”Lodge points out in his review.

He recalls that the director's previous feature film Leto, which entered the competition three years ago, lacked that kind of mobility.

Mateu also says that in the new picture, the author was quite able to show his creative method.

“This is a classic Serebrennikov: ambitious, eccentrically funny and visually artsy,” he writes.

At the same time, the critic believes that the potential of the tape has not been fully realized, and some of the viewers will find it confusing.

So, there are too many flashbacks about the childhood of Petrov Sr., distracting from the main line in the present.

“In the long and drawn-out story about Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden, the story finally begins to tire, and the Petrovs in the Flu are ultimately not as significant as the sum of their many parts,” concludes Mateu.

Ben Kroll had an ambivalent impression of the film: in his opinion, "the film alternately captures and tiresome."

  • © Shot from the film "The Petrovs in the Flu" (2021)

Some critics saw the influence of other works in the picture.

So, Leslie Felperin compares the movement of the hero through the city with the course of action in the novel by James Joyce "Ulysses".

Guy Lodge found the tape in common with the grotesque from Russian literature.

Demetrios Mateu found the picture thematically close to the surreal thriller by Joel and Ethan Coen, Barton Fink.

Ben Kroll noted that the style of the video sequence of the film "Petrovs in the Flu" is at first similar to "Amelie" by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and towards the end it resembles "Rashomon" by Akira Kurosawa.

When it comes to visuals, critics speak favorably about the operator's work.

“With the change of era and characters, the gangrenous, dizzying picture of cameraman Vladislav Opelyants gives way to warm, melancholic monochrome, and for quite a long time the film becomes completely different,” writes Guy Lodge. He admitted that he enjoyed watching the interaction of visual solutions, thanks to which one tape was perceived as two different paintings.