Petrov’s Flu

Present-day Russia. Petrov,( a cartoonist) his estranged wife and their son are caught by an influenza epidemic that has swept Yekaterinburg. Strange hallucinations ensue against a backdrop of New year festivities.Where the living and the dead are mix freely between two worlds the artist's mindscape. Director Kirill Serebrennikov’s wild Vision gains now a prescient look at modern Russia, in the context of post covid and modern Russian life, against a haunted backdrop of post-Soviet era. Petrov, a car mechanic moonlights as a comic-book artist, we journey with Petrov in various adventures and mishaps. We encounter his estranged wife who also has a dual identity as Librarian by day, and superhuman Vigilante by night! (a well-aimed nod to popular comic book cinema). Their son also comes down with flu, and both parents wonder if an expired aspirin leftover from 1977 offers any hope to break the fever. It's a death carnival of delights and horrors against a 1980's underground mix of rock soundtrack and subversive underground art. Very much through Serebrennikov’s macabre and surreal lense mixed with his feverish energy of subversion. Especially curious now and of interest for those looking for insights into Russian modern identity as it stands now post perestroika.