← Back to the films
A man's profile is assembled from torn blue, rust-coloured and monochrome paper strips, with buildings below.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

Political drama

Fragment of an Empire

StrangeBleak Best saved for later · For patient viewers Political drama

A soldier with amnesia gradually recovers memories and returns to a society transformed by revolution.

Year
1929
Director
Fridrikh Ermler
Country
Soviet Union
Length
110 min
Language
Russian

What to expect

Fridrikh Ermler uses subjective montage, urban architecture, and bodily recognition to make historical change a problem of perception. The film asks what it means to wake into a future that has already interpreted one’s past.

How to ease in

Stay with Filimonov’s point of view. Early discontinuity reflects damaged memory; later confusion comes from comparing imperial-era habits with the reorganised city before him.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes war trauma, amnesia, psychological distress, political propaganda, death imagery, and Soviet ideological framing.
Momo's Note May contain spoilers Who is Momo? →
Open the note ↓ Close the note ↑

Filimonov remembers in fragments while the city presents itself as a completed explanation. I like the uncertainty between recovering a self and being recruited into a new story about that self.

— Momo

Momo thinking about this film

Credits & versions

Version map

Wikidata 110-minute listing110 min110 minutes reproduces the single duration stated by the source. The listing does not identify a cut, score, territory, frame rate, source element, or restoration.Source: Wikidata — Fragment of an EmpireRuntime reference · Checked 2026-08-22

Where to go next

Want a gentler, shorter, or stranger next film? Ask Momo for something like this →
Momo is on shift. Visit Momo Cinema →

Continue through the catalogue →