by Sandra Brennan
synopsis
Daniil Kharms (Charms in German spelling) was a noted Soviet dadaist author. This intellectually challenging Austrian film from director/screenwriter Michael Kreihsl took some of the poems and prose from the one book Charms wrote before going to his death in a Nazi concentration camp, and fashioned a sort of non-story about the weird adventures of a Russian poet living in Vienna. The resulting episodes are tinged with the surreal, but are actually quite funny once the rhythm and tone of the piece is understood.
