Zero City

Alexei Varakin ( Leonid Filatov ), an engineer at a machine-building plant from Moscow, arrives in a provincial town on a business trip with the goal of agreeing on the technical details of the design changes for the air conditioners that the local mechanical plant has been supplying to his enterprise for fifteen years.

The absurdities and oddities begin already at the factory entrance, where there is no pass, which he ordered only half an hour ago. The secretary of the plant director works completely naked, but no one pays attention to this. The director ( Armen Dzhigarkhanyan ) does not know that the chief engineer of the plant died in an accident eight months ago.

In an unusually empty restaurant, Varakin is offered a dessert as a gift from the cook - a cake in the form of his head. Despite the waiter’s warning that the cook might take offense and commit suicide, Varakin indignantly refuses the treat, and the cook actually fires a bullet in his heart.

There are no tickets at the station, roads do not lead anywhere. Instead of a railway station, a taxi driver brings Varakin to the wilderness, in which the local museum of local lore is for some reason. The curator of the museum ( Yevgeny Evstigneev ) shows him an eclectic exposition from outlandish exhibits , in which nations and epochs blended: from Trojans and Romans to recent leaders of the country. And Misha, the young son of a local electrician, whose Varakin stayed for the night, informs him that he will never leave this city, he just calls his last name, first name, middle name, year of birth (1945) and year of death (2015 ), as well as the names of four of his daughters, on behalf of whom a grave monument will be erected at the local city cemetery.

The investigator ( Alexei Zharkov ) provides Varakin with irrefutable evidence that the deceased cook Nikolaev is Varakin’s father, and that Alexey’s real name is Mahmud. The local prosecutor ( Vladimir Menshov ) confesses to him in his secret desire to commit a crime, states that the tragedy in the restaurant is not suicide , but a planned murder , which aims to undermine the statehood of the Soviet Union . On the same evening, the prosecutor tries to shoot himself in front of everyone present at the dance evening dedicated to the next anniversary of the day when " rock and roll was first performed in their city", all the same Nikolaev.

What is perceived by Varakin as absurdity and complete nonsense, for the residents of the city, apparently, is ordinary. First, Varakin is amazed at what is happening and is trying to somehow fight the chain of irrational events that happen to him. But little by little, he reconciles himself to circumstances, adapts to them, and also begins to take the irrational course of things as a given.

During a party with a trip to nature to the “oak of Dmitry Donskoy’s power”, the prosecutor unexpectedly advises Varakin to run, and he runs, finds a boat in the fog and, pushing himself off the shore, sets sail. However, the boat has no oars.

Starring

• Leonid Filatov - Alexei Mikhailovich Varakin, an engineer at the Moscow Engineering Plant
• Oleg Basilashvili - Vasily Nikolayevich Chugunov, writer, chairman of the city writer organization
• Vladimir Menshov - Nikolai Ivanovich Smorodinov, city prosecutor, former secretary of the Komsomol city ​​committee
• Armen Dzhigarkhanyan - Pal Palych, Director of the local mechanical plant of Rosagroprom
• Evgeny Evstigneev - Director of the Local History Museum
• Alexey Zharkov - investigator
• Peter Shcherbakov - Stepan Filippovich Ivanov, Chairman of the Executive Committee
• Elena Arzhanik - Nina, secretary of the director of the local mechanical plant
• Tatyana Khvostikova - Anna, the driver of the car " Lada "
• Yuri Sherstnev - Kurdyumov, waiter of the local restaurant "Dnepr"

In episodes

• Alexander Bespaly - local electrician, owner of a private house
• Alyosha Gordydov - Misha, son of an electrician
• Evgeny Zernov - Nikolaev, chef of the local Dnepr restaurant, the first rock and roll performer in the city
• Mikhail Solodovnik - Attila

other.

• Field shooting was carried out in the city ​​of Kolomna (Moscow region) , however, there were many pavilion shooting ^[1] .
• Some episodes of the film were shot in the city of Gryazovets (Vologda Oblast) .
• During the creation of the film, Karen Shakhnazarov drank the only time in his life on the set - during the stage at the prosecutor’s office, the prosecutor was so inspired by the work of the director that he decided to talk to the director for a glass of cognac ^[1] .

• Golden Hugo Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival , 1989
• Silver Prize at the IF Valladolid , 1989
• European Science Fiction Association Award for Best Film at the IFF San Marino 1989

According to the philosopher Sergey Kara-Murza , in the absurd dream film "City of Zero" directed by Shakhnazarov (the son of one of the main assistants M.S. Gorbachev ), the destructive program of perestroika is briefly and talentedly presented, including methods of non-violent influence on the mass consciousness that paralyze the will to resist and salvation. The film can be considered as an encrypted scenario, according to which the collapse of the USSR took place. Conspirological version of the secret plan of the director Kara-Murza outlined in the book "Manipulation of consciousness", where he gave a detailed interpretation of the events in the picture. Cryptography as a political tool, pointed out by Kara-Murza, has been used in art for many centuries. Shakhnazarov himself at first did not recognize the version of Kara-Murza, denying such an insidious background and considering his film to be just an apolitical entertaining comedy-farce with elements of absurdity, but then he agreed that the film outgrew the original plan ^[2] .

• In the wax museum, Nikolaev is presented in the form of the foreman of the police, and in the video - in the form of the lieutenant of the OBHSS, which confirms the voice-overs of Oleg Basilashvili.
• When the train departs from the platform at the beginning of the film, the inscription “Vologda - Leningrad” is visible on the sign indicating the route. At the same time, through the city of Gryazovets, at the station of which the first scenes of the film were being shot, a train of this direction could not pass.
• Among the natives of the city, a real character is mentioned - academician, architect Ivan Fomin , "who discusses in 1934 with comrades Khrushchev and Kaganovich the project of erecting the magnificent building of the People’s Commissariat for Industry on Red Square." Ivan Aleksandrovich Fomin really designed the building of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR (though the film shows the design of the building of the NKTP, the authors of which were architects brothers Vesniny and S.V. Lyashchenko, which was also supposed to be built on Red Square on the site of the GUM ). Academician Fomin was born in Orel .
• Contrary to the assertion of Varakin that "the Romans never were on the territory of the USSR," this is not so. It is known that the Romans reached the Northern Black Sea coast, in particular, Crimea , and were also in the territory of Armenia . In the 1930s, a stone slab with Latin inscription dating from the 1st century AD (between 84 and 96 years) was found on the territory of modern Azerbaijan , at the foot of the Boyuk-dash mountain ( Gobustan archaeological reserve south of Baku ). The inscription reads: Imp Domitiano Caesare avg Germanic L Julius Maximus Leg XII Ful. Translation: “The time of the emperor Domitian Caesar Augustus of Germany, Lucius Julius Maxim, Centurion XII Legion of Lightning.” Perhaps the Gobustan inscription mentions a detachment of the XII legion, which was exterminated by the locals of Absheron . Emperor Domitian sent a legion to help the allied kingdoms of Iberia and Albania in the Caucasus - it is believed that it was the legion that went farthest east of Rome ^[3] .
• The name "Alexey Varakin" also bears the protagonist of another Shakhnazarov film - " American Daughter " (1995).

• "City of Zero" on the site "Encyclopedia of Russian Cinema"
• The film "City of Zero" directed by Karen Shakhnazarov (USSR, 1988). Information about the film. The official website of the Mosfilm film concern // mosfilm.ru
• VIDEO. The film "City of Zero" directed by Karen Shakhnazarov (USSR, 1988). Online cinema of the Mosfilm film concern // cinema.mosfilm.ru
• The film "City of Zero" directed by Karen Shakhnazarov (USSR, 1988). Review, personnel, reviews. // afisha.ru
• Alex Exler . Subjective notes about films. - Mystical tragicomedy "City of Zero". // exler.ru (July 4, 2001)
• Ruslan Bazhenov (Skifred) . Review of the film "City of Zero". // redar.ru (May 7, 2007)
• S. G. Kara-Murza “The Magic Flute of Perestroika: the film“ City of Zero ”as an Educational Task”