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.

改编自托尔斯泰《伊凡·伊里奇之死》。
关于导演：
作为塔科夫斯基最好的学生、朋友和曾主演《潜行者》的前苏联著名演员Aleksandr Kaidanovsky来说，没有人能比他更了解老塔的电影创作理念了，然而他自己的作品却始终充满着奇异的幻想、超现实主义的意境和对政治隐含的讽刺，尽管在摄影风格上依然带有明显的塔式风格，但从故事和主题上却很不同，本片就改编自托尔斯泰的名作。
Kaidanovsky年仅49岁死于莫斯科，是前苏联电影界的一位早逝的天才，他一生只拍摄了3部长片和一部短片，都是极其少见的先锋作品。