Petrov's Flu

A commandingly propulsive post-Soviet delirium about a divorced comics artist coughing and hallucinating his way across a grim, chilly night/day of detours, confrontations, memories and fatherly responsibilities.

All of it [is] staged and shot with conscientiousness and ingenuity rarely seen in films from any country anymore. It is indeed a phantasmagoria, and perhaps an overload.

Paints a bleak, wistful, tragically funny portrait of a man, a people, a world.

Kirill Serebrennikov’s blackly comedic fantasia paints a none-too-rosy picture of Russia, or its Soviet past festering just beneath the surface.

By turns impressive and oppressive, Petrov’s Flu combines technical razzle-dazzle with obtuse storytelling. Bravura and baffling in equal measure.

It’s possibly the most Russian thing ever created, and it’s most certainly not a soothing viewing experience. But there’s something grimly fascinating about it nonetheless.

Theater director Kiril Serebrennikov adapts Alexei Salnikov’s novel with brilliant colors bursting amid the dinginess of whatever version of Russia this is set in.

It’s a ride, all right, though you may find this journey sans finite destination more arbitrary than exhilarating.

A unified vision so frightening that one might forget to laugh at both the absurdity and the ambition of its director’s intentions.


Serebrennikov creates a compelling labyrinth of a story, composed of delusions, memories, projections, fantasies and banal real-life occurrences—all seamlessly blending and blurring together with exquisite precision.