Time’s tricks: fantasy and reality in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Petrov’s Flu first published by Klassiki Time moves in mysterious ways in Petrov’s Flu, written and directed by Kirill Serebrennikov (The Student, 2016; LETO, 2018). It opens – as indeed it ends – with a smiling conductress (Irina Vybornova) on a Yekaterinburg trolleybus in the build-up to…
“I won’t live in a mausoleum,” complains singer/composer Olya (Marina Vasileva), in Mara, of the grand if monolithic apartment building into which she is about to move temporarily with her husband Andrey (Semyon Serzin). “Come on,” Andrey insists more encouragingly, “it’s a constructivist landmark!” In a way, they are both right about the nature of…