The Twelve Chairs

Our tongue-in-cheek Film and Furniture pick of a film set in Russia is The Twelve Chairs (Mel Brooks, 1970) which takes the viewer on a comical treasure hunt for family jewels across 1920s Soviet Union. Their travels convey both the geographical and cultural landscape, as the main characters encounter all manner of interesting people on their journey. After many comical scenes of the protagonists running around with chairs (“walnut, covered in gold brocade”) over hills, through villages and smashing them over each other, the jewels are eventually found hidden inside one of them.