The Tuner

Adapted from selected stories by Arkady Koshko, THE TUNER is Kira Muratova’s pitch-black con-artist comedy as well as a veritable masterclass in slow-burn unpredictability Capitalizing on an overheard conversation, low-tier schemer Andrey (Georgiy Deliev) disguises himself as a piano tuner to access the apartment of Anna (Alla Demidova), a wealthy older woman. After quickly befriending Anna and her longtime nurse Lyuba (Nina Ruslanova), Andrey lets his girlfriend, Lina (Renata Litvinova), in on his ruse, inspiring ideas of murder and robbery in the unscrupulous beauty. But Andrey hatches a more devious plan: gain Anna’s trust by getting back the thousands of dollars that Lyuba lost to her own swindlers—and then go in for the big con. Shot in sumptuous black-and-white and featuring brilliant performances from a cast of Russian and Ukrainian all-stars, THE TUNER viciously satirizes a post-Soviet society of naivety, duplicity, and greed.