Three Stories (1997)

Ukrainian filmmaker Kira Muratova offers a darkly comical look at everyday cruelty in these three savage tales. The first, "Boiler Room No. 6" is based on a story by Yevgeny Golubenko and takes place with in a blue-tinted boiler room where a panic-stricken resident of a communal apartment has dragged the body of his neighbor, a young woman he killed over an argument about a bar of soap. There he beseeches the talkative poet, who tends the massive furnace, to help him dispose of the body. The nearly surreal "Ophelia," the second story, centers on the vengeance of the title woman, a blonde beauty who works in a maternity hospital. One day she sneaks into a records room and learns the names of every mother in town who has given a baby up for adoption. Ophelia was one of these babies and she is still angry. She finds one of the mothers and strangles her. She then finds her own biological mother and pushes her off a dock. The third vignette, "The Maiden and Death" follows a winsome little girl who tires of being constantly admonished by her well-meaning, but wearisome, paralyzed grandfather. He says the word "no" once too often and she retaliates by slipping rat poison into his tea. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide