MORPHIA

The young physician Polyakov takes up his first appointment in late autumn 1917. He finds himself in a no-man’s land where the sky is bright and blue, the air bracing and cold, and the threat of revolution suddenly remote. The idealist Polyakov is confronted with his limitations in the very first night, when a patient dies at his hands. He receives his first injection of morphium purely as a precaution, but the white powder soon proves to be a reliable helper for coping with stress, failure in his private life, and also the narrowness that surrounds him. By the time that Polyakov, riddled with self-doubt and claustrophobia, finds himself waiting for redemption in the midst of the snow-covered landscape, the love he feels for a nurse has long ceased to provide him with any semblance of stability. Inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s autobiographical “Notes of a Young Doctor” (1925), Balabanov draws an unwavering portrait of the downfall of a brilliant personality. In contrast to Bulgakov’s positive view of the world, however, the director adds a plausible twist to the conclusion, without allowing the plot to drift into explanations or excuses. Balabanov’s physician has long stopped searching for the strength and reasons to liberate himself from the given circumstances of life and social connections. The scriptwriter Sergei Bodrov, Jr. depicts passivity as a natural scheme for living. The route is accepted as the destination, along with the downfall it entails. A period film, masterly in direction and lighting, in which every one of the separate chapters demonstrates that the environment can never be held accountable for the individual or his decisions. The human being acts of his own free will, but never at liberty from the self.