When visiting a new town, it’s easy to expect that there will be some differences from the place you’ve come from, but the strange small town of Zerograd is downright bizarre. From naked secretaries to cakes with that look exactly like his face, Zerograd is a boggling trip, with writer-director Karen Shakhnazarov parodying the ways the Soviet Union then clung to their distortions of reality, even as it crumbles, but it also eerily echoes the way governments around the world have manipulated their people’s concept of reality all for the sake of their respective states. Zerograd’s bizarre episodes don’t seem to go anywhere, but that’s sort of expected, especially with the world still having to deal with the loss of truth globally.
Going on a business trip, the hero of the film suddenly finds himself in a fantastic city. It is very similar to our world, only the hidden absurdity of everyday life here has become apparent.
Assigned on a business trip, Moscow engineer Alexey Varakin visits a factory in a small town in order to identify the exact parts that they need for their production line. However, strange incidents occur during his visit, leading him to be trapped within the small town.
I’m honestly still stuck on the cake. Maybe Zerograd predicting the future of propaganda might make sense considering the way history repeats itself, but it’s surprising that it also predicted the trend of realistic looking cakes– maybe even the trend of art trying to evoke reality with so much effort that it falls within the uncanny valley.
What a strange, strange film.
