Dystopian sci-fi Petrov’s Flu is an intriguing but cluttered mixture of thoughts and musings on Russian society, which makes for a fresh but sometimes frustrating watch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 18, 2024

Theater director Kiril Serebrennikov adapts Alexei Salnikov’s novel with brilliant colors bursting amid the dinginess of whatever version of Russia this is set in.

| Mar 13, 2023

It’s a ride, all right, though you may find this journey sans finite destination more arbitrary than exhilarating.

| Oct 24, 2022

A commandingly propulsive post-Soviet delirium about a divorced comics artist coughing and hallucinating his way across a grim, chilly night/day of detours, confrontations, memories and fatherly responsibilities.

| Oct 6, 2022

A unified vision so frightening that one might forget to laugh at both the absurdity and the ambition of its director’s intentions.

| Sep 27, 2022

Serebrennikov creates a compelling labyrinth of a story, composed of delusions, memories, projections, fantasies and banal real-life occurrences—all seamlessly blending and blurring together with exquisite precision.

| Original Score: 8.3/10 | Sep 26, 2022

All of it [is] staged and shot with conscientiousness and ingenuity rarely seen in films from any country anymore. It is indeed a phantasmagoria, and perhaps an overload.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 23, 2022

Paints a bleak, wistful, tragically funny portrait of a man, a people, a world.

| Sep 22, 2022

Petrov’s Flu resists categorization, encourages polemical platitudes, and disrupts its otherwise stunning stasis to once again throw in an “impossible” camera move.

| Sep 20, 2022

Kirill Serebrennikov’s blackly comedic fantasia paints a none-too-rosy picture of Russia, or its Soviet past festering just beneath the surface.

| Sep 20, 2022

Too many elements get lost in the sauce because its easier to denounce than construct something clear.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 27, 2022

The adage that all art is political rings even truer.

| Mar 21, 2022

An ambitious, irony-laden feat of film-making, Petrov's Flu transports you down the rabbit hole into a world unlike any other - one that may just inspire you to get a flu jab afterwards.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 18, 2022

A riotous odyssey through post-Soviet Russia, this demanding epic keeps the audience on its toes, as adept filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov moves rapid-fire through a series of full-on set pieces.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 17, 2022

By turns impressive and oppressive, Petrov’s Flu combines technical razzle-dazzle with obtuse storytelling. Bravura and baffling in equal measure.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 15, 2022

There is great cinematic energy in the film’s concoctions, and bravery in its unsparing depiction of Russian life; its director, Kirill Serebrennikov, has been persecuted by the state for his dissidence.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 13, 2022

It’s possibly the most Russian thing ever created, and it’s most certainly not a soothing viewing experience. But there’s something grimly fascinating about it nonetheless.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 13, 2022

Petrov’s Flu’s dizzying sensations and formal showboating would probably have been enough on their own, but at the heart of Serebrennikov’s film is the depiction of a society in total collapse.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 12, 2022

Set in the wintry dark of the remote eastern city of Yekaterinburg, the film is a hallucinatory, pessimistic satire of Russian life.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 10, 2022

This nostalgia could be cloying, but Serebrennikov has a wonderfully sly sense of humour.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 9, 2022