(2007; Gruz 200, Russian) Grim, gritty, gruesome film from director/writer Alexei Balabanov of a horrific confluence of coincidences, spilling into a pitiless pit of nasty nihilism, is based on actual events. The title refers to a military euphemism employed in reference to the bodies of soldiers returning to the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in August 1984.

Before driving up for a visit with his mother in Leninsk, Artyom Nikolaevich Kazaka (Leonid Gromov), professor of Scientific Atheism at the university in Leningrad, complains to his brother Mikhail (Yuri Stepanov), a colonel, of his son Slava's "hanging out" in college without serious attention to his studies. After the colonel's daughter Liza introduces her boyfriend Valera Buadze (Leonid Bichevin), who says he's half Georgian, to her uncle, Mikhail comments on the young man's earning good money up north and owning a car.

Without Liza, who declines his invitation to accompany him to the disco (saying he should get a good night's sleep before the long journey the next day), Valera picks up Liza's friend Angelica (Agniya Kuznetsova), the daughter of the Secretary of the Regional Committee, offering to drive her home; but first he stops in Kalyaevo for booze.

Before Valera arrives, Artyom has already been at the shack when his car's engine stalls on the road. Outside he briefly encounters a creepy fellow, Zhurik Zhurov (Alexei Poluyan), before entering to request assistance. The owner, Alexei Belov (Alexei Serebanov), sends his Vietnamese gardener Sunka to repair the engine, but demands that Artyom have a drink and share a conversation. They engage in a heated argument over Communism's atheism and Alexei's City of the Sun.

No God, no soul, acknowledges Artyom, just "moving material" and consciousness within an incomprehensible universe. "Where does consciousness come from?" asks Alexei. Artyom then admits to secretly being a Gnostic.

When Valera doesn't return to the car, Angelica (after being frightened by Zhurik's looking in at her) goes inside the shack just as Valera collapses on the floor; Alexei's wife Antonia (Natalya Akimova) hides her from the men in the banya. But heartless Zhurik finds her anyway, abuses her, and takes her in a sidecar on his motorbike to his mother's apartment, leaving her chained to a bed, while the mother watches tv. At first she threatens her abductor with her father's high rank and her fiancé's returning from Afghanistan before begging for mercy.

Informed of another "cargo 200" shipment, including the remains of Sgt Kolya Gorbunov, a paratrooper without family, Col Kazaka ("When will it end?) contacts police Capt Zhurov to provide a burial in the cemetery for a Soviet hero.

Hearing of the murder of Sunka, Artyom meets with Antonia, who says that though Alexei is not guilty he refuses to speak against Zhurov, whom he met in prison years before; the professor is fearful of getting involved because he could be reprimanded and lose his job.

Taking possession of the crate containing Sgt Gorbunov's corpse, Capt Zhurov brings it home and opens it, dragging the body into the bedroom: "Your fiancé has arrived."

Before Valera eventually completes the chain of connections among the characters by partnering with Slava for his trip north, the intervening incidents and the ending are nothing if not brutal, bitter, bleak.

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