Second Class Citizens

Vera’s husband dies in her flat. The death comes from something a doctor does without meaning to. She did not love the man to begin with. Even so she has no idea what to do with the body. She decides to get it out of the house. On the way she runs into a strange man. He has just walked out of the city mental hospital. The two of them move through the city with the body. They carry it from one place to another. Muratova opens the wandering as drama. The scenes then slide toward the absurd. The comic and the grim blur into each other. The director looks at people the city has pushed to its margins. The film takes its title from those left in the second rank. The passage between comedy and drama sets its rhythm. Natalya Buzko and Mykola Siedniev appear in the one hundred five minute film, a Ukrainian production Kira Muratova finished in 2001.