The European Studies Council and Russian Studies presents a film screening: “Asthenic Syndrome.”
The film consists of two unrelated stories: one is shot in black-and-white and the other in colour. In the first story a woman who recently buried her husband is in a constant state of depression (and sometimes even direct aggression) ends up facing people like her, who are on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
The hero of the second story is a school teacher. As a result of personal predicaments and problems at work he has gotten the Asthenic Syndrome – he falls asleep at the most inappropriate times. He is admitted to the hospital for the mentally ill where he gains the understanding that the people around him there are not any crazier than those who live in freedom. After some time he is released and he ends up falling asleep on the subway. The empty wagon takes away the sleeping man into a dark tunnel.