Leonid Bichevin as the morphine-addicted country doctor Mikhail Alexeivitch Poliakov

I had hoped to have completed my series of reports on the standout films I caught at Thessaloniki some time ago, but have been otherwise occupied with work, illness, hangovers and various other commitments for the past fortnight. Anyway, for my last posting I want to return to the final film I saw, the Russian film Morphia. Now, anyone who has seen any of director Aleksei Balabanov’s previous works might well appreciate that it would be difficult to describe this particular title as ending the festival on a high note. His previous film, Cargo 200 (Gruz 200), a morbidly disquieting look at the mistrust and insecurity of the pre-Perestroika Soviet Union set against the backdrop of the invasion of Afghanistan, must surely lay claim to ranking amongst the top 10 feel-bad films of all time, while Of Freaks and Men (Pro Urodov I Lyudej, 1998), probably his best known title in the West, was a startlingly original, sepia-toned tale of a wealthy aristocratic household in St Petersberg at the turn of the 20th century as it is infiltrated by the corrupting influence of a pair of low-life pornographers who immediately take a shine to the pair of Siamese Twins who live there. Words like ‘subversion’ or ‘abjection’ don’t even begin to cover Balabanov’s darker work, so I knew there wouldn’t be too many people filing out of the Olympion by the end of Morphia with huge grins spread across their faces – in fact, one audience member had to be carried out, not even halfway through proceedings. I, however, have rather a soft spot in my dark heart for Balabanov’s grim vision, and was certainly not disappointed with this latest title.

Burn the Bourgeoisie! Balabanov's Morphia

The basic through-line of Morphia is simple: a young doctor, Mikhail Alexeivitch Poliakov (Leonid Bichevin) is posted to a ramshackle hospital in a godforsaken ice-bound provincial village, where he begins his miserable decent into morphine addiction as the events of the October Revolution of 1917 gradually make their impact across the country. As in Of Freaks and Men, the various scenes are broken up with intertitles, like a silent film, to cue you up for what is to come. An early example the “The First Injection”, signposts the beginning of Poliakov’s secret habit, after an allergic reaction to the dyptheria vaccine he takes following a failed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a local patient dying of the disease.

Ingeborga Dapkunaite as Nurse Anna

It quickly becomes clear that Poliakov is not a particularly accomplished doctor, dashing upstairs to consult his medical texts when expected to deliver a breech birth, giving the excuse to his nurses that he is going to fetch his cigarettes – Morphia, it should be mentioned, is often quite comic, in a particularly black sort of fashion. It was about ten minutes after the “The First Amputation” intertitle that a desperate, audible gasping was heard from the back of the auditorium, the lights came up and the film was stopped for about ten minutes, as the viewer who had fainted was escorted out of the screening, I think the first time I’ve ever witnessed such a thing. Depicted in unflinching detail, the amputation scene primed everyone for the worst for the rest of the film, so much so that after the “The Tracheotomy” title came up, I spent the next ten minutes gazing at my hands, shaking. I haven’t seen an audience so traumatised since Miike’s Audition at Rotterdam Film Festival all those years ago.

Poliakov entertained by his aristocratic neighbours

Grim as it may be, there’s more to Morphia than just a shocking parade of gruesome surgery sequences punctuated by Poliakov’s increasingly desperate drug taking. While deceptively simply staged, the film is beautifully shot in dingy washed-out greys and greens, with a great eye for the period. A night-time sleigh-ride as the doctor is lost in a blizzard, pursued closely by wolves, is one of the most memorable pieces of cinema I’ve witnessed in a long time.

The revolution arrives in town

Morphia is based on the semi-autobiographical stories of Mikhail Bulgakov, adapted by Sergei Bodrov Jr., who acted in several of Balabanov’s earlier films including Brother and War, and who had planned to make the film himself before his death in a rockslide in 2002. Some more blasé critics have dismissed it as “just another addiction film”, but I really loved the mood Balabanov creates here, like in his previous films, conjuring up a particularly grim and unappealing vision of Russia and its past. I was chatting to a Variety journalist a few days before the screening who told me that Balabanov has quite a cult following among young audiences in his own country. Personally I’d love to see a full retrospective of his work over here, because I’ve been mightily impressed with what I’ve seen so far.