Aleksandr Medvedkin’s Happiness, as rowdy as any Soviet silent movie, is a comic parable composed of equal parts of Tex Avery and Luis Buñuel. It satirizes the plight of a Soviet farmer who finds himself providing for the state, the church, and his peers at the expense of personal satisfaction.

It is said that Sergei Eisenstein, upon watching Happiness, exclaimed “Today I saw how a Bolshevik laughs!” A Soviet-style comedy, it was forgotten in the West before being rediscovered in the mid-60s, influencing young radical filmmakers such as Chris Marker.