DAU. Natasha

Feb 27 2021 N/A 2h 18m
Drama

Natasha runs the canteen at a secret 1950s Soviet research institute. This is the beating heart of the DAU universe, everyone drops in here: the institute's employees, scientists and visiting foreign guests. Natasha's world is a small one, split between the demands of the canteen during the day and alcohol fuelled nights with her younger colleague Olga, during which the two confide their hopes of romance and for a different future. At a party one evening Natasha becomes close to a visiting French scientist Luc Bige and the two sleep together. The following day her life takes a dramatic turn when she is summoned to an interrogation by the KGB's General Vladimir Azhippo who questions the nature of her relationship with the foreign guest.

Plot

A tension-weary couple negotiate a path between defiance and compliance in a closed scientific Institute in Moscow at the beginning of the Cold War-during Stalin-era: Natasha runs the canteen of secret Soviet research institute. When the customers have all gone home, she gossips and bickers tensely with her younger assistant- the doctor's daughter Olga, who is too lazy to help clean up and mocks Natasha for a life wasted in the affair she has been having with a married man, Blinov. The two women have a surrogate mother-daughter relationship, very much love-hate, with at times a borderline-erotic intimacy. One evening, they get roaring drunk with all the scientists and apparatchiks who have come in to celebrate a sinister experiment in radiation conducted by a visiting French scientist Luc, who goes to bed with Natasha. And then, with a sickening inevitability, she is pulled in for questioning by the security services, in the form of hatchet-faced officer Azhippo.

Written by

Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Kora Landau-Drobantseva

Directed by

Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, Jekaterina Oertel

Cast

Natalia Berezhnaya, Olga Shkabarnya, Vladimir Azhippo

Crew

View crew

Production Countries

Ukraine, Russia, Germany, United Kingdom

Production Companies

Phenomen Ukraine, Phenomen Berlin Filmproduktions (DE), Phenomen Films

Languages

English

Awards

2 wins & 3 nominations total

Scores
# of Votes
1,617
Average Rating
6.3 out of 10
Metascore
75
Popularity
NA