Poslesloviye (Epilogue). 1984. USSR. Directed by Marlen Khutsiev. Screenplay by Yuri Pakhomov, Marlen Khutsiev. With Rostislav Plyatt, Andrey Myagkov. In Russian; English subtitles. 98 min.
“A masterful chamber drama whose terrors play out between the telephone and the typewriter, claustrophobic, explosive and rich in subversive potential, Epilogue equally functions as comment on life under Brezhnev” (Barbara Wurm). After a 13-year hiatus, Khutsiev returned to fiction filmmaking with this Chekhovian nocturne, set in a contemporary Moscow in which the trappings of luxury do little to fill the void of spiritual emptiness. An aging doctor, full of good humor, counters his son-in-law’s morose cynicism by taking flight in redolent memories of his youth: “Moscow, 1925, frost, love, faith in the future,” the smell of pipe tobacco and nostalgic walks in Chistoprudny Park, Tolstoy and the circus, the reckless heroism of performing surgery on a ship during a Nazi aerial bombardment. Khutsiev’s familiar theme of generational discord between a Muscovite intellectual and a veteran of the Great Patriotic War is poignantly evoked in the subtle, claustral performances of Plyatt and Myagkov.