"The Tuner" is Muratova's brilliant portrayal of a sick society on the verge of complete moral collapse. Her protagonists are the little people so removed from reality that at times they seem unrealistic, invented, and their actions unmotivated. In the end, their weakness and crushing defeat by the petty con artist gives them moral power that vindicates their social marginality. Their quirkiness, their refusal to live by the rules, or, as in the last scene, to accept their own defeat even when their very survival is at stake, becomes, paradoxically, the last hope for humanity. Against the context of the Orange revolution, "The Tuner" becomes Kira Muratova's prophetic vision of the return of human dignity in her home country.
