My English Grandfather

Wacky and whimsical versions of the Russian revolution by Russians were hardly thick on the ground before glasnost, and if this film is sometimes too Comic Cuts to hold together, it tickles like a Flann O'Brien essay. A contemporary composer recalls his English grandfather, a telegraph engineer called Hughes who was stranded in Georgia by events in 1917. Legally, the 3m circumference of soil at the base of the telegraph posts belonged to Britain, so Hughes moved his brass bed and belongings away from the upheavals of history and became a species of Robinson Crusoe. Whether boxing with Bolsheviks, laying out rapists with flower vases, or courting the local leader's sister, our hero remains a rampant individualist of bumbling charm. A diverting curiosity.