Close to the bone...
Click to viewWith thanks to http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/
This is both highly imaginative, close to the bone, and oddly off course. Many Russians will not, and from the comments on YouTube, have not, taken kindly to this 'dark' compression of Soviet history. We all like to imagine that our history is what we can safely own, with a sense of honour, witness how in the UK, we even manage to turn Gandhi to our account by imagining that 'other' colonial regimes would probably have had him assassinated (or at least locked up permanently with a dash of torture thrown in for good measure)!
Though this piece does acknowledge the 'high' points of the Soviet Union - defeating the Nazis and putting a man in space - they slip pass quickly in a flow of 'greyness': Soviet man labouring to build a state that consumed its own - which, of course, it did, and the inability to come to terms with this shadow side impedes Russia's progress today.
But it does nothing to capture a parallel reality which was people's inexhaustible ability to cope, make do and mend, shape patterns of friendship and solidarity (detached or insulated from the State) and flourish.
I suppose this is what is always missed in the official flow of history (or, in this case, satire on this history). It is a kind of satire, however, that insulates people from addressing the harsher truths. Look how they see us, they can say, all grey, no colour. This is not who we are.