The Asthenic Syndrome

Astenicheskiy sindrom

Soviet Union

1990

153 Min

Color, Black and White

1.37:1

Russian

Currently 4.2/5 Stars.
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SCR Aleksandr Chernykh, Kira Muratova, Sergei Popov

CAST Olga Antonova, Sergei Popov, Galina Zakhurdayeva, Natalya Buzko, Aleksandra Svenskaya, Pavel Polishchuk, Natalya Ralleva, Galina Kasperovich

SOUND Yelena Demidova

Berlinale (Competition): Special Jury Prize, AFI FEST

Synopsis

In the old days it was called hypochrondria, or black melancholia. Now, apparently, it’s termed the Asthenic Syndrome. Whatever it is, Nikolai, a teacher of epicly indifferent pupils, has got it, and it’s not much fun. Worse yet, quite a few other people, even an entire society, seem to be afflicted with the same problem writ extremely large. —IMDb

Director

Kira Muratova

Ukrainian-Russian filmmaker and screenwriter Kira Muratova began her career as a student of Sergei Gerasimov at the State Film School VGIK. To earn her diploma, she and her husband Aleksandr Muratov co-directed the 1961 short U krutogo yara. She later made her directorial debut with Korotkiye vstrechi in 1967, but the film was not released until 1987. The bulk of her films were made at the Odessa Film Studio and many were shelved by government censors until 1987-1988. Her films focus on successful, but emotionally troubled women who privately yearn for stability and inner peace while coping with their adventurous, high spirited, lovers, husbands and sons. In 1989 Muratova again ran into trouble with censorship with the satirical comedy-drama Astenichesky Sindrom because of her adamant refusal to remove one brief, relatively unimportant scene featuring obscene language. In 1990 the picture was released uncut thus marking the advent of a new permissiveness in Soviet cinema. In 1995 Muratova’s… read more

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Andreea Veronica

17May12

At some point in the film we see some of the characters trying to compose living love-making sculptures by using real nude bodies as a way of distraction, escapism and also redemption from the reality, and looking at the entire Asthenic Syndrome, it seems that Kira Muratova is creating a chaotically pulsating sculpture of the Soviet Union during perestroika, adding in a mosaic like made of vortexes, the fears, the insecurities, the weaknesses and the physical and moral instability of a nation crippled by the hardness of a totalitarian regime followed by its needed but painful deconstruction, which implies the sacrifice and the dilute of generations exposed to its toxicity; the state like a wrecked vessel adrift on a sea of sadness is sinking slowly in its apathy, quaking only when frustrations burst into crisis of raw aggression aimed blindly towards people or animals, and a seal of opaqueness seems to keep everyone in a state of voidness of all hopes, morals and ideals; the youths are acting bluntly and disrespectfully, the older are decrepit and without any guidance power over the generation they have to nurture; the whole country has become and insane asylum as Muratova herself voices: "My country had reached bankruptcy and there was nowhere else for it to go. Everything had to burst!"

Răpciune

6Jan12

a guy with gorbachev's portrait on his cap is searching for misha (mihail gorbachev) to announce him that kolia (nicolae ceausescu) has been killed. a school headmaster is called vissarion iossifovitch, because he wants to build a man totally opposed to the one that the historical iossif vissarionovitch had commanded. during the eighties, the russian alcoholic prohibition forced many to use thick shoeshine and slices

johnsonisjohnson and Jorge Didaco like this

Răpciune

6Jan12

of bread to absorb and consume the alcohol from the shoe polish. the soaked up bread, used as a sponge, was eaten after removing the thick layer of sooty grease`that stayed on top, thus providing an ephemeral dose of alcohol to the addicted. the names of sokurov, german, muratova appear in the film. well, my point is that the asthenic syndrome is like that degreased slice of bread, that keeps all the powerful essence of an amazing masterpiece, but gives up the grease, chernuha, that khrustalyov, my car makes so much use of (not that i dislike its employment in german's film).