Despite all the disgustingness of the key scenes of this film and the gradual immersion into absurdity and madness of both the characters and the script itself, this meaning of this film is much deeper than it might seem to an unprepared viewer.
The basic story is quite simple, the first half of the film shows us two Russian officers who were sent to the guardhouse for some offenses, who gradually go crazy. I will not write spoilers, but in general the development of the plot is a very good allusion to a sick society plunging into madness and mass insanity.
I would even call this film prophetic. I know that it was filmed under the impression of the chaos and collapse that Russia found itself in after the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s, but how accurately it describes the events that have happened in the last decade in the Ukraine! It's hard for me to even imagine what film would better describe the complex system of relationships between society, power, officials and army, to which the main characters act as an allegories. In this interpretation, it's simply brilliant.
