THE FOUNTAIN

Perestroika was in its early days when Yuri Mamin, the “boy wonder” of new Soviet film comedy, made his film about a decrepit house and its occupants, a disaster-comedy that escalates with the force of an avalanche. A small businessman is growing two thousand tulips in his apartment and hopes to sell them. Disciples of the “Pamyat” society watch over the wallpaper with graffito written by a “genius of the people”, and while they’re busy nailing a commemorative plaque to the wall, the building is threatening to collapse. The roof is held up – literally – by slogans. The lift in the building may – or may not – be a stairway to heaven, but the film cunningly leaves open the answer to the pressing question: Does this grotesque parable refer to the (Communist) system, or to the attempted restructuring (Perestroika)?