Yady, ili vsemirnaya istoriya otravleniy

Russian director Karen Shaknazarov likes to shock his audiences.He does this by transforming zany tales into absurd films about obscure topics which are not very much understood by his admirers.In one of his previous films named "Zero City",we see a post Perestroika type absurd story which defies all kinds of classification.His film "Poisons or the World History of Poisoning" is one of the most absurd Russian films which shows that ancient history can be useful if it is employed in a nice manner.It is the story of an actor named Oleg whose wife has been seduced by his neighbor.As he is thoroughly convinced of her infidelity,he would like to poison her.A pensioner named Prokhorov helps him to get rid of his wife by lecturing about famous deaths caused by poisoning.It is from Prokhorov we learn that many famous and not so famous like Cesare Borgia and Caligula were killed as they were poisoned.This is a film which has elements from drama as well as comedy films.One of the strange things about this film is that there are hardly any scenes of senseless violence in it.