Character Relationship Map: Three Stories

Characters

• Tikhomirov (played by Sergey Makovetskiy) — protagonist

  A stoker who writes poetry in his spare time and rents a place in the boiler room to men seeking intimate encounters. He tells an old acquaintance about his unbearable neighbor, whose corpse he has hi...

• Ophelia (played by Renata Litvinova) — supporting

  A hospital archive worker who expresses contempt for men, women, and children, and especially resents mothers who abandon their babies. She uses a gynecologist's advances as an alibi while murdering a...

• old man (played by Oleg Tabakov) — supporting

  An elderly man in a wheelchair who operates a coffee grinder and spends time with a little girl from the neighborhood. He teaches her chess and reads to her, while she brings him water poisoned with r...

• homosexual (played by Aleksei Shevchenkov) — supporting

  One of the men who frequents the boiler-room space Tikhomirov rents out for intimate encounters. The frequenters interrupt Tikhomirov as he tries to speak with an old acquaintance, and they regard Tik...

• little girl (played by Liliya Murlykina) — supporting

  A neighborhood child who visits an elderly man in a wheelchair, sometimes irritating him. He teaches her chess and reads to her, but she brings him a glass of water containing rat poison, and he dies...

• mother (played by Alexandra Svenskaya) — supporting

  The hospital archive worker's mother, a single woman who gave her daughter up many years earlier. The daughter, inspired by the fate of Shakespeare's Ophelia, arranges a tragic fate for her. The synop...

Canonical Relationships

Family, romantic, and professional connections based on plot evidence.

• Ophelia → mother (Family Daughter) — Ophelia's resentment toward her mother shapes the murder staged as an Ophelia-like fate.

  The second novella reveals that the abandoned woman is Ophelia's own mother, who gave her up many years earlier.

Story Dynamics

Alliances, conflicts, and narrative interactions that evolve throughout the story.

• old man → little girl (Social Chess Teacher) — Their relationship includes repeated visits and a temporary educational bond.

  The old man teaches the little girl how to play chess and reads a book to her.

• Tikhomirov → homosexual (Unknown Sexualized Encounter) — Their presence interrupts Tikhomirov and exposes the degrading social environment around him.

  The homosexual frequenters use Tikhomirov's rented space and regard him as an object of pleasure, even offering him money.

Story Analysis

Three criminal novellas reveal how apparently harmless people become killers through resentment, abandonment, and concealed self-interest.

Plot Progression

1. The Cupboard in the Boiler Room — Tikhomirov is introduced as a stoker and poet whose rented space attracts local homosexual frequenters. A hidden corpse and his plan to burn it transform an ordinary conversation into a disturbing cri...
2. Ophelia's Bitter Archive — Ophelia's contempt for humanity centers on mothers who abandon children. She uses an alibi while arranging a murder connected to the revelation that the victim is her own mother.
3. The Room After Death — An elderly man in a wheelchair forms an uneasy bond with a nearby little girl through chess and reading. The expectation of inheriting his room gives their interactions a concealed menace.
4. Water with Rat Poison — The little girl brings the old man poisoned water after their apparently gentle lessons. He drinks it and dies, completing the film's final inexplicable murder.