(Gorod Zero). One of the key films of the Perestroika era, Zero City tells the story of a Moscow engineer named Varakin who arrives in a small town with instructions to change the size of a locally manufactured air-conditioner part. He arrives at the company office and is welcomed by a naked secretary. Next, he finds himself sitting down to lunch; dessert is a cake that strongly resembles his own head, baked by a chef who soon shoots himself. With every new encounter, Varakin is sucked into the vortex of a new identity and an even newer reality. With its images of a burdensome past (Soviet history is crammed into an elaborate diorama exposition deep below ground) and an indeterminate future, and with its roots in both the folk tale and more modern forms of absurdism, Shakhnazarov's very funny and poignantly disorienting film is a real historical touchstone.