A policeman finds a girl in a vegetable patch and dreams of adopting her. The child functions as a trigger for natural, social and biological urges and human traumas. After The Asthenic Syndrome‘s exhausted intellectual, Muratova now switches to a complete character: a simple man with a sentimental philosophical mask. The title is an oxymoron. Muratova doesn’t allocate power to the policeman, but to miserable, hypocritical post-Soviet citizens. The interplay of situation and fate is the key to the intrigue in The Sentimental Policeman. It is reminiscent of the cruel developments in the stories of Daniil Kharms. The film is built up of transitions between anecdote and Grand Guignol, farce and melodrama, pantomime and court sessions. The director’s daring is circumscribed by cunning, as she rewards the ‘naive savage’ with love and philosophical questions. Incidentally, a poster of Malevich’s Black Square hangs on a wall in his apartment. The most under-appreciated of Muratova’s films.
