Dissecting Dostoevsky
Phantasmagorical comedy
Nadezhda Suslova, the first female student at the University of Zurich, has more on her hands than dissecting frogs. Surrounded by skepticism and thinly veiled hostility, she fights for her right to learn, to think, to exist. Her sister Polina arrives from abroad — entangled in a torturous, mutually destructive love affair with the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. Daughters of peasants, the sisters tackle their troubles the way one does in the countryside: by summoning fate itself. They hold a rustic fortune telling ritual to divine Polina’s future husband. But as emancipated modern women, they take it a step further. When the spirit of Dostoevsky appears, they decide to dissect him — like one of Nadezhda’s frogs — in hopes of finally understanding what literature is for, and why it wounds so deeply. A phantasmagorical comedy by Vsevolod Bernstein, Dissecting Dostoevsky stars Arina Merzliakova and Vera Ostrowski. Scenography by Georges Filchakov.
In Russian with German subtitles.
