The Living Corpse

A man, his wife, her lover – divorce is out of the question. There is only one way out: the agony of a feigned death. Fyodor Otsep's film version of Leo Tolstoy's play is a classic example of the "East-meets-West" perspective adopted by the Mezhrabpom-Film studio and its German producer, Prometheus. This classical melodrama about a divorce that is prevented by both the church and the state is interwoven with avant-garde montages to create a social critique of pre-revolutionary Russia. (Berlinale)