The Asthenic Syndrome

Legendary director Muratova’s demented chronicle of the constant absurdities and insults of Soviet life in the 1980s takes its title and its cues from a psychological condition that alternates between maniacal aggression and apathetic inaction. Fittingly split into two parts, this Ukrainian “post-glasnost film to end all post-glasnost films” (Derek Malcolm) may concern a possibly grieving widow or a possibly insane professor, but it’s the mood of impending collapse and seething madness that matters, not the narrative. “A movie that breaks all the rules when it comes to telling a story and clearly distinguishing between fiction and documentary, fantasy and reality, anger and detachment” (Jonathan Rosenbaum).

—Jason Sanders

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