Review of Operation Y and Shurik’s Other Adventures (1965)
Seen in 2025.
Three incidents in the early adulthood of a good and diligent man named Shurik: Rehabilitating a thug through labour at a part-time job, studying for exams at a polytechnic university, and taking a break from parenting his toddler to relieve an old lady guarding the communal depository on a winter night: The night of a staged break-in known as “Operation Y”.
Well-paced slapstick comedy with imagination and verve. The romantic middle section is the best executed, and the most genuinely optimistic about the project of the communist state. If you want a bright counterpoint to the tall black peaks of Soviet cinema, this is the place to start.
References here: The Diamond Arm (1969).