Directed by Andrey Khrzhanovsky. Starring Grigoriy Dityatkovskiy, Artem Smola, Sergei Yursky 12A cert, IFi/Light House, Dublin, 130 min

HOW PLEASING it is to come across something so wonderful – and yet so unheralded – as this intricate, moving, barmy study of incidents in the life of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.

On paper, the film reads as if it might turn out to be a pretentious bore. Directed and co-written by Andrey Khrzhanovsky, a distinguished animator and documentarian, A Room and a Halfimagines Brodsky (Grigoriy Dityatkovskiy), exiled to New York in 1972, returning by boat to today's bustling, globalised St Petersburg. (In fact Brodsky died, without seeing home again, in 1996.)

As the ferry passes up the Neva, Brodsky remembers his delicious, heart-breakingly sweet parents (Sergei Yursky and Alisa Freindlich), ponders his time as a young artist, and devotes particular attention to a well-remembered orange cat.

What could otherwise have been rather dreary is transformed into something endlessly energetic by Khrzhanovsky’s delightfully naïve animations and by a series of faultless performances that stuff every character with salty, cabbage-flavoured goodwill. The material involving Brodsky’s college years — rendered in the monochrome style of an early Jean-Luc Godard film —offers a rare portrait of jazz-loving bohemia in the USSR. The youthful Brodsky’s efforts to seduce girls proves that there is still some life in the coming-of-age story.

The core of the film remains, however, the relationship between the poet and his eccentric, mutually devoted parents. Returning to the titular room and a half after serving as a photographer for the Soviet navy, Brodsky snr had to face the possibility of exile to Siberia. Later, when that threat passed, he and his wife (who suffered headaches following vaguely described “assaults” during the war) were forced to endure the trial and expulsion of their only son.

The elder Brodskys remain fretful, but somehow manage to maintain unlikely good humour. Though rich and original characters, they recall the Jewish parents created by so many US writers: Woody Allen, Philip Roth, Mel Brooks.

A Room and a Halfdoes not excel in all technical areas. The dialogue often sounds post-synced, the cinematography is occasionally a little muddy. But Khrzhanovsky's collage remains as gorgeously original a film as you will see this season.