Or, to give it its original Russian title, Operatsiya Y I Drugie Priklyuchenia Shurik.

And, before you get intimidated by that rather ponderous title, a little carrot that I will dangle: this is a movie that’s recommended for those times when you’re feeling drained and overworked and your brain needs time off. It happens to me every now and then, when trying to relax by watching a film is not enough; the film too has to be something that I don’t need to think about: a film that I can just sit back and enjoy. This is that film.

Operation Y (which is how I will refer to it; the entire title is just too long) is about the eponymous Shurik (Aleksandr Demyanenko), a young college student at a polytechnic institute. In his spare time, Shurik works at a construction site; otherwise he’s a nerdy, earnest student, so focused on his studies that he mostly cannot see beyond his books…

The film is divided into three sub-stories, each centring round Shurik. Each story begins with its own credits, mentioning the main characters and their corresponding actors in that particular segment. In the first story, Shurik, having got into a bus, sees that a belligerent fellow named Fedya (Aleksei Smirnov) has sat down in the seat reserved for invalids. Despite many attempts by fellow passengers to get Fedya to vacate the seat for a heavily pregnant woman on the bus, Fedya refuses. She’s not an invalid, is she?

Shurik, ever gallant, pretends to be blind, and Fedya, defeated, finally gets up. That’s when Shurik whips off the dark glasses he’s been wearing, and offers the now-vacant seat to the pregnant woman.

Fedya, furious, bashes up Shurik. The next thing we see, the bus passengers are giving testimony: Shurik and Fedya have been arrested, and of course Shurik is let off thanks to the testimony of the others. Fedya is sentenced to time doing ‘voluntary’ work at one of various work places, none of them particularly pleasant. When the sentenced men line up to be assigned different tasks, Fedya ends up being sent to a construction site.

And guess who his fellow-worker here is? None other than Shurik.

Of course, given their brief but turbulent past, sparks fly at once, not in a nice way.

The second segment is set in college. Shurik’s exams are happening, and he (as well as all his classmates) are so neck-deep in studies, they go to the most ridiculous of lengths to study. Or to make other arrangements to ace the test.

Well-written notes are in big demand, and one day, as he’s going on the bus, Shurik happens to notice that the girl (Natalya Seleznyova) sitting next to him is studying from a book that seems to have very well-written notes. Shurik and the girl get so utterly absorbed in reading the notes that they don’t even realize whom they’re sharing the book with. The girl, Lida, absent-mindedly still thinks she’s with the girl friend whom she’d got onto the bus with; Shurik can’t even be bothered to wonder over whom he’s with, as long as the book is there, in front of him.

Together, they go to Lida’s home. Together, they eat breakfast. Together, it being so hot, they strip down to their underwear… all while so engrossed in the book, nothing else registers.

The third episode is the one that’s actually all about the eponymous ‘Operation Y’. Shurik doesn’t put in an appearance here till well into the story. Instead, it begins with the director (Vladimir Vladislavskiy) of a warehouse: a store of all sorts of odds and ends, from theatrical costumes to bottles of vodka, enamel chamber pots to laboratory skeletons. The director has, it seems, been up to no good—probably embezzling? Selling off stuff in the open market when he’s not supposed to? —so gets a shock when he learns of the imminent arrival of an inspector.

The director gets together a trio of his trusted men and tells them his plan to get out of being indicted by the inspector. They’ll stage a robbery. These three will pretend to be burglars, and will break into the depository in the middle of the night. They’ll break things, make a mess, make it appear as if lots of stuff has been stolen. When the inspector arrives, therefore, it won’t be surprising if he finds things missing.

The director has to pay up for this, naturally: his men even haggle with him—but eventually they get the plan sorted out. An old lady, a granny, will be on guard that night outside the depository, and she can easily be knocked out with a chloroform-soaked handkerchief…

… which is where Shurik comes in. The granny in question happens to be his landlady, and on the night she’s supposed to be on guard duty outside the depository, she also has to babysit her granddaughter and look after the rising blinis batter.

And guess who, out of the goodness of his heart and his open, generous nature, offers to help look after child and blinis batter?

What I liked about this film:

The uncomplicated funniness of the three episodes. Humour in films can be the type that requires close attention to dialogue, undivided attention, an understanding of the background so that satire is appreciated—or it can be like this, where all that’s needed is a sense of the ridiculous. There’s actually very little dialogue in these three episodes; most of what happens is purely physical (in fact, the physicality of it is often so beautifully almost-choreographed that it impressed me a good deal). It’s often slapstick, but there are moments of subtle parody, too: the last episode, Operation Y, for instance, has scenes which reminded me of a classic Hollywood Western or one of those swashbucklers, like The Prisoner of Zenda—but in a funny way. Director Leonid Gaidai (who also made the fabulous The Diamond Arm) does a great job with this one too.

The next time you want a stress-buster, check out this delightful comedy. A copy with English subtitles is available here.