Billed as a satire and comedy, Bed and Sofa nonetheless portrayed the realities of the Moscow working poor, while also dealing with starkly sexual situations, such as polygamy and abortion.
The characters themselves also resembled the trio, with Vladimir Fogel as Mayakovsky, Lyudmila Semyonova as Lilya and Nikolai Batalov as Osip Brik.
Even so, Bed and Sofa was controversial at the time of release in the Soviet Union, due to its focus on human relationships, while the state and the party are almost completely disregarded.
She is bored and resentful with the constant succession of household duties and the cramped living conditions in which she must cook and attempt to organize her clothes, even though there is no place to put them.
When Kolia's old friend, Volodia, arrives in Moscow, he cannot find a place to live in the overcrowded city, due to a severe housing shortage which was still a major social problem ten years after the revolution.
There is a sexual tension between the two from his arrival, and when Kolia has to leave town for a job, Volodia takes advantage of his friend's absence by openly seducing Liuda.
This is cross cut with shots of Kolia and Volodia, her two erstwhile “husbands”, at first being annoyed with her departure, but then being relieved that they can now return to their carefree bachelor lives in their dingy basement apartment on Third Meshchanskaya Street.
The film is viewed as a brilliant psychological chamber drama that lay bare the dysfunctions and contradiction of early Soviet society.
[1] The film is a frank portrayal of sexual manners of the 1920s, as well as the living conditions in Moscow in the time, which are in sharp contrast to the official picture of a state where everything was to be the perfect idyll of Soviet life.
A physician specializing in psychiatry and neurology, he served as a medical officer with the Red Army during the Russian civil war that followed the revolutions of 1917.
When matters reach their head, Liuda significantly removes the picture from the frame and places it back on the wall, signaling an abrupt change in the relationship, this time for good.
[1][2] None of Room's three previous pictures, two short comedies from 1924 that are no longer extant, and the action adventure, The Bay of Death (Bukhta smerti, 1926), prepared critics or audiences for Bed and Sofa.
[1] A. Zuev, the reviewer for Pravda, criticized the title under which the film had been released, Ménage à trois, and the personalities of the male characters, while still praising the acting.
The DVD also features audio commentary by Julian Graffy, professor of Russian Literature and Cinema at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College, London.
[9] In 1979, feminist Canadian director Kay Armatage released a 12-minute-long version of the film; the story was more directly seen from the woman's point of view.
[13] A stage musical adaptation of the same name was written by Polly Pen (composer) and Laurence Klavan (librettist), premiering "Off Broadway" on 1 February 1996.