User Reviews

Though this is classified as comedy, but actually it is an off-beat satire on class distinction. I am quite surprised that in the Prime Soviet era, this type of movie could escape the iron grip. Unlike the normal propaganda movies (whether it is Soviet Block or its opposite, Hollywood), here the communist propaganda (painting the Nobility as villain) is at the bare minimum. The satire is in fact on both the opposite strata- the nobility as well as the proletariat. The main protagonist is an Aristocrat, and though not too young, is an idealist, who dreams of breaking the class distinction and embrace the other strata in his bosom (figuratively), quite unlike his friends from his class. One evening, after a get-together with his friends, probably which ended a bit soon, he comes out and finds his coachman, along with the coach, is missing, gone to meet his girl-friend, assuming the Lord would be late. Unlike what is expected when a serf disappears like this, this Lord doesn't send the troop to arrest the man and have him whipped, but takes another way to punish him. He walks all the way to home, so that when the man comes back, and comes to know of it, he would be ashamed enough not to do it again. On the way home, he comes across a festivity, and finds out that it is the wedding of one of the minor staff in his office. True to his ideals, he decides to crash in the party, bless the couple, enjoy the festivity and then part. But the things doesn't naturally go as he planned. Presence of an aristocrat naturally puts a plug in the party, and soon the Lord, filled with cheap drink to his throat, starts behaving like the others, or may be worse, passing out in the end. Early in the morning, once sober, he sneaks out and goes back to where he belongs. The movie is a study in the various thoughts of the two main protagonists, Pralinsky, the Nobleman and Pseldonimov, the bride-groom, whose wedding party was destroyed by the well meaning boss, as they dream the various characters they assume, in their drunken stupor. It is an off-beat movie, and a satire on both the classes, making a caricature, not only the characters, but also the physical looks of the two strata. A bit slow, and abstract, but if one goes for those type, worth it.