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Asthenic Syndrome

Original title: Astenicheskiy sindrom / The Asthenic Syndrome
1989 · 2 h 33 min
Directed by Kira Muratova
Drama

Cast

Olga Antonova Sergei Popov Natalya Busko

Credits

Written by: Sergei Popov

Plot

A black-and-white drama begins with a woman's grief at her husband's funeral and her furious breakdown, then the film switches to a colour story about a schoolteacher who falls asleep at any moment and drifts through a bleak, exhausted Soviet society. Rudeness, apathy and cruelty fill the scenes. Kira Muratova's 1989 film, which won a Special Jury Prize in Berlin, is a bitter portrait of the last years of the USSR, and was long banned.

Sinekatalog’s take

Kira Muratova's film breaks into two halves, a black-and-white tale of mourning and a colour story of a narcoleptic teacher in a bleak Soviet world. Harsh, strange and bold, it is a bruising portrait of exhaustion and indifference.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 6.5 / 10 (1,667 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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