Friday, January 21
An
Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano
dir. Nikita Mikhalkov, USSR 1977
At a picturesque, remote estate in turn of the century Russia, a jovial
physician, Nikolai (Nikita Mikhalkov) recounts an indelicate tale
momentarily stopping to inspect his reflection on a silver
carafe of his truncated courtship of a young woman named Ksyusha
Kalitina following an embarrassing encounter with the deaf, elderly
nurse at the Kalitin home after the diligent woman wandered into his
room by mistake and proceeded to treat him for a nonexistent gastrointestinal
ailment an unusual greeting that he nevertheless accommodated
under the presumption that she must be performing some eccentric family
custom. - Strictly
Film School