[1] In March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union.

The glasnost period became distinguished by the rediscovery of cinematic hidden gems, the censored films, which were officially known for Stagnation-era artistic talents.

Films of this period also depicted modern social and economic deterioration, the loss of ideals, and disillusionment in Communist ideologies.

Ivan Lapshin (Andrei Boltnev), is a former participant in hostilities (the Civil War is implied), a strong-willed and decisive person.

In addition to the plot of the communal apartment, the action of the film develops in two more directions - in fact, the work of the search, including raids, interrogations of suspects, communication with a criminal element, and a "love triangle" consisting of a local theater actress (Nina Ruslanova), visiting journalist Khanin (Andrey Mironov), and, in fact, Lapshina.

All three, and Khanin, and the actress, and Lapshin, good-naturedly play the employee of the UGRO Okoshkin (Aleksey Zharkov), who is striving in every possible way to get married and, finally, to move out of a communal apartment.

German has said that his main aim was to convey a sense of the period, to depict as faithfully as possible the material conditions and human preoccupations of Soviet Russia on the eve of the Great Purge.

[8]IMDB review: "A small-town man lives a normal homelife where he puts on appearances of respectability for his family and friends, but at work he's a brutal KGB enforcer.

My Friend Ivan Lapshin is heavily reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky's The Mirror - half-memories told as a series of random disjointed vignettes, in both black-&-white and in color, with very loose handheld camerawork lending it a naturalness easy to get lost in.

I couldn't help but keep comparing it to the Mirror the entire time I was watching the movie; albeit Ivan Lapshin's a very solid imitation, pretty damn good in its own right.

"[citation needed] Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews said, "The film is challenging, German playing with time, film stocks and shooting styles, his cinema fractured to give the abstract impression of distant memories...once what German's trying to do sinks in, Lapshin becomes a potent symbol of the Stalinist era.

[Full Review in Spanish]"[citation needed] A New York Times article said: “Scene after scene, shot for the most part in the sepia of old photographs, catches the poverty and confusion of a hard time - the crowded apartment, the beat-up cars, the dreary town and its shabbily dressed people, the outbursts of desperation and nuttiness.” “In his treatment of a troupe of actors and some musicians jangling along on a flag-festooned little trolley, the director seems to have picked up some tricks from Fellini, but the spirit is very different.” “‘'We'll clear the land of scum and build an orchard’' - was taken by the Kremlin as a dangerous piece of irony.”[10]