The Suicide (1996) review

In the Soviet Union (during the early 30's), Semyon (Lothaire Bluteau) is hopelessly depressed and wants to end his life but his anemic wife Maria (Brooke Smith) tries to talk him out of it (and get him to practice the tuba instead) - when news of his situation starts to spread the other citizens, including postman/neighbor Egor (Michael Mastro), Cleopatra (Elina Löwensohn), butcher Pugachov (Chris Bauer) and Aristarch (David Rakoff), a member of the Intelligentsia, try to use his death for their own ends.  This adaptation of Nikolai Erdman's play is recorded like an episode of American Playhouse on PBS and includes some black and white footage from Russia - while it's lacking in subtlety (Semyon could be described as "manic"), confining it to the stage gives it a feeling of claustrophobia and the dark comedy resonates: living under Stalin was so terrible the prospect of a bullet to the head to escape the misery must have been a welcome relief.  Bordowitz, an LGBTQ+ activist, claims that he's using the source work as an allegory for the AIDS crisis although based on what's actually presented that sounds like quite a sizeable mental stretch.