Хрусталёв, машину! (Khrustalyov, My Car!) 1998 Ages 18+
Production still from Khrustalyov, My Car! 1998 / Director: Aleksei German / Image courtesy: Seagull Films / View full image
When
2.30 pm, Sat 23 May 2026 (150 mins)Where
Gallery of Modern Art, Cinema A
Accessibility
- Subtitled
- Wheelchair Accessible
Admission
Book NowAbout
Aleksei German’s black comedy Khrustalyov, My Car! is a baroque, absurdist depiction of the final gasps of Stalinism. The film follows Klensky (Yuri Tsurilo), a barrel-chested, mustachioed military surgeon who oversees a large Moscow hospital. After accidentally stumbling upon his doppelgänger in a hidden room at the hospital, he realises that a double is being prepared to confess at a show trial so he can be purged. He decides he must go into hiding, but his desperate attempts to leave the city only seem to take him further down an inescapable rabbit hole.
Shot and edited over seven years, Khrustalyov, My Car! is an immersive fever dream of a film. German infuses every frame with surreal paranoia: characters dance and roar as if in a widespread mania, busts of Stalin and animal heads loom within each interior, and voices trip over each other in a mix of whispers and shouts. Recently restored in 2K, this is an intricately designed portrait of a world in collapse, with German plunging the audience into the madness.
Ages 18+ | Contains sexual violence and strong coarse language
Production Credits
- Director: Aleksei German
- Script: Aleksei German, Svetlana Karmalita
- Cinematographer: Vladimir Ilyin
- Editor: Irina Gorokhovskaya
- Cast: Yuri Tsurilo, Nina Ruslanova, Mikhail Dementyev
- Print Source: American Genre Film Archive, Austin
- Rights: Seagull Films
- Year: 1998
- Runtime: 150 minutes
- Countries: Russia, France
- Language: Russian
- Subtitles: English
- Colour: Black & White
- Shooting Format: 35mm
- Screening Format: DCP