Film at Lincoln Center and Faktura 10, a core initiative of RIBBON International present a retrospective of the acclaimed Ukrainian filmmaker whose career spanned from the early 1960s to her death in 2018. The series celebrates Muratova’s wholly idiosyncratic vision, and opens with her signature work, The Asthenic Syndrome, presented in a new 4K restoration made possible by Janus Films. Comprising 16 films, the retrospective will feature a robust selection of Muratova’s greatest directorial achievements, as well as her appearances as an actor.

“Kira Muratova: Scenographies of Chaos” offers a rare opportunity to explore the complete body of work of a filmmaker who remained largely unknown to American audiences during her lifetime and has only recently come into widespread international acclaim. Muratova is now widely considered the greatest Ukrainian filmmaker of the last half century—and arguably one of the most influential women directors in cinema history. Deeply fascinated by eccentric characters and linguistic deviations, Muratova honed a distinctive style characterized by surreal and unexpected repetitions, refracting the experience of an unstable reality by way of outré storytelling devices. Caustic and misanthropic in life, Muratova nevertheless was touchingly humanistic in her films, radiating childish wonder, defiant hope, and sparkling irony.

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The Asthenic Syndrome

Written in 1989 just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, The Asthenic Syndrome is often referred to as a portrait of an era. Central character Nikolai is an English high school teacher at an institution where the principal is struggling to implement revised pedagogical methods called for within the perestroika period. Work and family responsibilities distract him from his true passion—writing. In an effort to escape the despair, confusion, mysticism, and madness of a society in turmoil, he confronts the Dantean hell of late Soviet reality by falling asleep in inappropriate places at the most inappropriate times.

The Asthenic Syndrome is made up of two stylistically and thematically distinct parts that tell the story of two archetypal Soviet intellectuals—Nikolai, the teacher, and Natalia, a doctor—both of whom struggle with feelings of loss and inferiority. In the context of the profound dehumanization of Soviet society of that period, the normality of these characters, who retain the capacity to think and feel, becomes a form of deviation. The film stands apart from Kira Muratova’s previous work as, perhaps, her most radical critical statement. While it’s often seen as an unequivocal indictment of the Soviet project, for Muratova, the film symbolized the illusory nature of humanism and served as a judgment on humanity itself. The film won the Silver Bear when it premiered in the 1990 Berlin Film Festival. A Janus Films release.

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