Khrustalyov, My Car!

Khrustalyov, My Car!
Directed by Aleksei German
Produced by Aleksandr Golutva
Armen Medvedev
Guy Séligmann
Written by Aleksei German
Svetlana Karmalita
Starring Yuriy Tsurilo
Music by Andrey Petrov
Cinematography Vladimir Ilyin
Edited by Irina Gorokhovskaya
Distributed by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Release date
  • May 20, 1998 (1998-May-20)
Running time
 150 minutes
Country Russia
Language Russian

Khrustalyov, My Car! (Russian: Хрусталёв, машину!, translit. Khrustalyov, mashinu!) is a 1998 Russian drama film directed by Aleksei German, screenplay by Svetlana Karmalita. It was produced by Canal+, CNC, Goskino, Lenfilm and VGTRK.

Plot summary

...On the first day of the cold spring of 1953 two events occur, not comparable in importance: fireman Fedya Aramyshev is arrested and "the greatest leader of all times and peoples" Josef Stalin is found lying on the floor of his dacha...

Some time before these incidents the life of military-medical service general Yuri Klensky is shown. In the Soviet Union the Doctors' plot rages to the utmost extent, but the jewish Klensky, cheering himself up with almost non-stop drunkenness hopes that the punishing sword of Soviet justice will not touch him. However, a number of events show that Klensky's hopes are futile, and soon arrest will follow. At first the General meets his own double in the hospital, and then in his house there is a "foreigner" bearing news that allegedly his relative lives abroad. Klensky, suspecting that it is a provocation, releases the "foreigner" from the stairs, but a local snitch manages to report in time to the MGB senior about the doctor's contact with foreigners.

Klensky tries to escape but ends up getting arrested. The General's family is evicted and is placed in a crowded communal apartment and Klensky himself after detention is left in free rein to the criminals who brutally beat and rape the General. But then a miracle happens: the bloody General is driven directly from the cell to the country to a certain "high-ranking" patient, who the shocked Klensky learns to be the "Great Leader". Stalin's state is hopeless, he is dying while wheezing and agonizing, and Beria's voice full of triumph utters the first sentence of post-Stalinist Russia, "Khrustalyov, My Car!".

Klensky is immediately released, but he does not return to medicine, the General "goes to the people". At the end of the film he being commandant of a train, happily drinks, and then balances a glass of port on his shaved head...

Cast

Awards

At the 1999 Russian Guild of Film Critics Awards the picture was awarded as Best Film and Aleksei German received the Best Director prize.[1]

It was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "1999". Russian Guild of Film Critics.
  2. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Khrustalyov, My Car!". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-09-30.
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