The year is 1917. We are in the Russian countryside. It is the middle of freezing winter. A pale young, newly educated doctor arrives. Having to deal with one medical challenge after another he soon becomes the centre of everyone’s attention. To soothe the impressions of human suffering he turns to morphine.

Morphia is a breathtaking film, both authentic and stylised at the same time. In its description of the dark sides of human nature and how surroundings, people and drug addiction might form a person, it has a certain momentous Russian quality à la Dostoyevsky. However, the film is also full of absurd humour and unforgettable operation scenes. The combination of slapstick style and intertitles, as in old silent films, creates a light and cheerful atmosphere amid all the misery. And revolution is surging on the horizon, rippling the surface of the film’s micro universe. Morphia is based on an autobiographical novel by the Russian author Mikhail A. Bulgakov. The screenplay was written by Sergey Bodrov Jr., the Russian starlet who died in an avalanche in 2002.

Eli Gjerde