Friday, March 11, 2016

Mausoleum / The Mausoleum


Мавзолей. Lauri Randla | Estonia, Finland 2016 | Fiction | 26 min
PC: Aalto University / Exitfilm. P: Maira Dobele, Peeter Urbla. D+SC: Lauri Randla. DP: Peter Salovaara. S: Jorma Kaulanen. ED: Leo Liesvirta.
    Contact: Maira Dobele, www.aalto.fi
    In Russian with English subtitles.
    C: Matti Onnismaa (Stalin).
    "На сопках Маньчжурии" / "Mantšurian kukkuloilla" / "On the Hills of Manchuria".
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "The Mausoleum is a short story about the pathologist Aleksey Abrikosov who embalmed the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in 1924. Abrikosov gets a phone call in the middle of the night just before the 1936 May Day festivities and is informed that there is a fly inside Lenin's sarcophagus. No one knows how to get rid of it as Lenin lies in a sealed micro climate, designed to preserve the God of Communism forever."

AA: A macabre episode from the period of the Terror in the Soviet Union in 1936. A fly has appeared in the Lenin sarcophagus, and with only an ingenious method it can be removed: a diamond drill and a special vacuum cleaner. Stalin himself inspects the result and does not comment on the little cut that has appeared in Lenin's ear. The atmosphere of utter fear and absurd authority is conveyed very effectively.

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