This film has what it takes to become a new New Year's Eve must-see for Russian speakers or fans of Russian culture - as a black counterpoint to the romantic comedy "Irony of Fate" from the Soviet stagnation year 1975. The Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov, who now lives in exile, made " Petrov has a fever,” a furious two-and-a-half-hour odyssey through post-Soviet consciousness labyrinths during his absurd Moscow trial, at which he was accused of embezzlement, on the nights between trial days.
Kerstin Holm
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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Like the original, the novel of the same name by Alexej Salnikow, his screenplay follows the delirious logic of dreams.
The divorced father Petrov - a Russian Jedermann - falls ill with the flu shortly before the turn of the year and is therefore susceptible to delusional visions, apparitions of the afterlife and childhood memories.
His story does not take place in the confusingly similar new housing estates of Moscow and what was then Leningrad, as in the cult film by Eldar Ryazanov, but in the rough industrial city of Yekaterinburg, where almost nobody seems to be healthy.
Petrov's ex-wife, a nondescript librarian, is also infected.
On top of that, the character embodied by the audience's favorite celebrity, Chulpan Khamatowa, revels in murderous fantasies.
A writer friend of the hero, in order to escape the sad local normality,
Poor old man's obscene fantasies
The opening scene in the dimly lit bus, whose rowdy ticket seller has dressed up as Princess Snowflake in honor of the approaching festival, strikes the consistent motif of the constrained journey of life.
In contrast to the cheerful resignation that prevails with Ryazanov, the people here wish guest workers, politicians, Jews and often one another to hell.
A poor toothless retiree who is given his seat by a little girl teases the child with her obscene fantasies.
When the door suddenly opens onto a civil war turmoil in which the rich are randomly shot down, the feverish hero finds himself in a film within a film in which the aggression of the people is put into practice.
Semyon Sersin is a thoughtful, soft-hearted, empathetic Petrov who loves his son and draws comics to his delight.
On the other hand, Khamatowa as his ex, who still desires him dearly, plays a library employee whose psyche is dominated by a desire for revenge.
Her unfulfilled passion for Petrov transforms her into selective male hatred, which transfers her to another, demonic reality.
Several times in the film, Chamatowa's eyeballs go black and she gains supernatural powers like a "Matrix" heroine or like in a video game.
For example, at a poetry reading in her library, where Serebrennikov once again gathered Moscow's literary celebrities, some of whom have since scattered as a result of the war through emigration.