When a middle-aged high-court judge in 19th-century Russia starts to experience a sharp pain in his side, he soon finds himself bedridden with an undiagnosed terminal illness. Face-to-face with his own mortality, he becomes increasingly introspective and emotional as he ponders the reason for his acute suffering and imminent death.

Gloomy postmodernism from the student of Tarkovski. I was really stressed by this film. It is very awesome and absurd story set in Kaliningrad. One can see a lot of ruined castles and 18-19th century German buildings here. You can also see the grave of Immanuil Kant and a lot of screened freaks. Atmospheric and cold suspense with some gore and psychotropic visions. Very nasty and hypnotic trip into the flashbacks of Perestroika and the USSR. This film has much influence from European post modernism and deals a lot with mental pain and its visions. I would recommend this film for those people who explores the dark side of experimental cinema. Quite obscure visionary and a lot of classical music.
Rich imagery and political allegory enliven an already complex story in this late Soviet-era mystery/drama. In the story, a government investigator has come to town to look into the validity of bribery charges that were brought against an official there. In the meantime, we discover that a twin and his brother have been engaged in a kind of very close warfare. One twin was a medical doctor, and was married to a beautiful woman. The second twin was interested in bedding the wife, and had no feeling for his brother. Thus, he impersonated him in the hospital, and openly engaged in medical malpractice of the grossest sort, resulting in a patient's death. The first twin lost his career and was forced to support himself by going door to door selling kerosene. The second (and clearly sociopathic) twin, naturally, became an important figure in the activities of his local soviet.