tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13029857096342747342018-09-28T22:46:50.910+02:00Russian FilmIncluding Soviet FilmsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1050125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-39366612024572677542017-12-19T19:55:00.002+01:002017-12-19T19:55:26.822+01:005 best Russian movies of 2017 you just have to watch<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.rbth.com/arts/327021-5-russian-movies-impossible-to-miss">Listed below are five Russian films, ranging from Oscar nominees to a Disney fairytale, that took 2017 by storm, both nationally and, in some cases, internationally.</a> The verdict? Unmissable, all of them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Loveless, by Andrei Zvyagintsev</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img height="400" src="https://st.kp.yandex.net/im/poster/2/9/5/kinopoisk.ru-Nelyubov-2955619.jpg" width="282" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The film, which has been shortlisted for the 2018 Golden Globes and submitted as Russia’s entry for next year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Picture, not to mention that it picked up the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, could be rightly seen as an international success of Russian art-house cinema. It portrays a child who finds himself psychologically abandoned and unwanted by his mother and father.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Director Andrei Zvyagintsev has been a favorite of European cineastes since the release of his first film, The Return, which received a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2003. Zvyagintsev’s subsequent films have all been nominated or awarded at major European and U.S. festivals — The Banishment (2007), nominated for Cannes’ Palme d’Or; Elena (2011), winner of the Cannes Jury Prize; and Leviathan (2014), winner for best screenplay at Cannes and recipient of the Golden Globe award for best foreign-language film.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Arrhythmia, by Boris Khlebnikov</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b><img height="225" src="https://s.om1.ru/localStorage/news/3a/30/ee/67/3a30ee67_resizedScaled_1020to574.jpg" width="400" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This latest offering from Boris Khlebnikov has already scooped the Grand Prix, the Audience Award and the Best Actor prize at the main Russian festival, Kinotavr, as well as the Best Actor prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. In terms of national and international recognition, Arrhythmia rivals Loveless.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The film shows the story of the complex marriage of two doctors living in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, very honestly presenting the challenges that medical workers face every day in the modern Russian public healthcare system. The realist depiction of Russian life and the acrid satire on the situations almost every Russian faces every day have made this film extremely popular with Russian audiences.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://russianfilm.blogspot.ba/2017/03/konchalovskys-paradise-gets-best-film.html">Paradise, by Andrei Konchalovsky</a></span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><img alt="Image result for konchalovsky paradise" height="225" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xKUEqzlytTk/maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Silver Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival and a Russian nominee for the Oscars in 2017, Paradise was made by one of the Russia’s most nationally and internationally acclaimed filmmakers Andrei Konchalovsky.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The film came out in Russia in January 2017, although international audiences got acquainted with the piece even earlier. The film’s female protagonist is modeled on the Russian princess Vera Obolenskaya, who emigrated to France after the 1917 Revolution and later joined the French Resistance.. She helped British, French and Soviet prisoners escape during the Second World War, and found herself in a Nazi concentration camp as a result. But even there she continued to save the lives of others. This documentary-style, black-and-white movie is dedicated to the heroes of the French Resistance.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tesnota, by Kantemir Balagov</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" gesture="media" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UU1ep4kO5XM" width="560"></iframe> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kantemir Balagov, a 26-year-old director from the North Caucasus region of Russia, this year caused a sensation nationally and internationally. His first full-length film Tesnota (the word could be translated as “tightness” or “closeness”) won the Certain Regard FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017, as well as many other international prizes. Balagov was a student of the famous Russian director Alexander Sokurov, who curated a special study course for young directors in the North Caucuses. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Balagov depicts the Jewish district of his native city of Nalchik in 1998 at the time of the Chechen war. A young couple from a Jewish family announce their engagement, and the next day they are kidnapped. Different generations of the family find their own ways to save their relatives.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Balagov is certainly a bright Russian director, whose career is worth following.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Last Warrior, by Dmitry Dyachenko </span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This Disney comedy film, based on Russian fairytales, is a record-breaker in its homeland, becoming the biggest ever box-office draw in Russia. Co-produced by the local company Yellow, Black and White, the movie nudged past the previous champion, Stalingrad by Fyodor Bondarchuk, which had held the record for four years.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The story starts with Ivan, a young man from Moscow, who takes part in the so-called “white mags” competition, occasionally teleporting from present-day Moscow to the mysterious world of the Russian fairytale.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The film has not yet been shown abroad, but, considering its popularity in Russia, there’s every chance it will hit the global silver screen.</span><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-13401242250760052542017-09-22T20:26:00.001+02:002017-09-22T20:26:49.122+02:00New Zvyagintsev movie 'Loveless' to compete for Oscar from Russia<a href="https://www.rbth.com/arts/326222-zvyagintsev-loveless-compete-oscar"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Russian Oscar committee decided to suggest this movie for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Each of Zvyagintsev's movies is a big event in the cinematic world, usually marked by coveted awards. Loveless has won the Jury Prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and now Russia selected it to be the entry for the competition of the 90th Academy Awards, RIA Novosti reports. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">European countries lined up to buy the rights to screen Loveless even before the official film release. A young couple is on the verge of divorce. They decide to send their son to an orphanage, but they unwittingly forgot about the decision the next day, they are too busy with their own lives and the boy disappears. The following plot feels like a search movie (similar to Gone Girl or The Searchers), but on a philosophic level, as film critic Anton Dolin says, they are not simply searching the land outside, but for something inside themselves. The critic also notes that the cast and dialogue appear completely natural, even during the erotic scenes. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Zvyagintsev's previous critically acclaimed movie, Leviathan, was also nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film in 2014, won the Golden Globe Awards and got a prize for the best script at the 67th Cannes Festival.</span><br /><br /><br /> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7SWgNRJpYlM" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-8338620560258648372017-08-16T20:28:00.001+02:002017-08-16T20:28:26.658+02:00Prominent Russian Actress, Director Vera Glagoleva Dies At 61<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Russian actress and director Vera Glagoleva (file photo)" height="224" src="https://gdb.rferl.org/9AD5F764-21F9-4AAC-81A4-587A162C6F2C_w1023_r1_s.jpg" width="400" /></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-actress-vera-glagoleva-dies/28680076.html">Prominent Russian actress Vera Glagoleva has died at the age of 61</a>, Russian news agencies reported on August 16.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Reports cited friends, relatives, and a Russian screen actors' guild as saying that Glagoleva died at a hospital in the United States.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The cause of death was not immediately clear.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Glagoleva gained fame in the Soviet Union for her roles in films such as Don't Shoot White Swans (1980) and To Marry The Captain (1985).</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">She directed six movies and also worked as a producer and screenwriter.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The last film Glagoleva directed was the 2014 drama<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1302985709634274734#editor/target=post;postID=1713271299371535646;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname"> Two Women</a>, based on a story by Ivan Turgenev and starring British actor Ralph Fiennes.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-72903873522980766732017-08-10T22:23:00.006+02:002017-08-10T22:23:57.816+02:00Controversial film about last tsar approved for release in Russia - Alexei Uchitel’s Matilda <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Russian culture ministry has cleared a film depicting a love affair between Russia’s last tsar and a ballerina for nationwide release, despite protests from conservative critics who have demanded it be banned.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Matilda, made by prominent Russian director Alexei Uchitel, tells the story of a love affair between the young Nicholas and a half-Polish ballet dancer, Matilda Kshesinskaya. Trailers show romantic scenes between the prince and the ballerina. Conservative and religious critics deny the affair ever took place and say the film is an insult to the memory of Nicholas, who was canonised by the Russian Orthodox church in 2000. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Russian MP Natalia Poklonskaya filed a request to the general prosecutor’s office earlier this year asking to check whether the film broke a law on offending the feelings of religious believers. She admitted she had not seen the film when she made the request and said she did not plan to. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As Russia marks the centenary of the year that saw twin revolutions upend the tsarist order and sweep Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks into power, the reputation of the last tsar is being rehabilitated. Monuments to Nicholas II are going up across Russia, and last month thousands of pilgrims made a 13-mile overnight walk to the spot where Nicholas and his family were executed in 1918, to mark the 99th anniversary of the deaths. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d70724c03fd8cb385040650901eb98be38618049/42_400_4736_2843/master/4736.jpg?w=700&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=0a6e909148926b9c95676677803ea434" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d70724c03fd8cb385040650901eb98be38618049/42_400_4736_2843/master/4736.jpg?w=700&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=0a6e909148926b9c95676677803ea434" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;">There is even a small but vocal contingent of Russians who want to see monarchy restored in the country.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Last month, hundreds of Orthodox activists staged a protest in Moscow against Uchitel’s film, and in some cases threats have even been made to cinemas, warning them they face attacks if they show the film. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A spokesman for the Russian culture ministry said on Thursday that the film complied with Russian law and had been issued a 16+ certificate. He said the certificate applied to the whole of Russia, but added that individual regions had the executive authority to ban the film if they wanted. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The hardline ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has already called for the film to be banned, and authorities in neighbouring Dagestan have also said they do not want the film to be shown.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/10/controversial-film-about-last-tsar-approved-for-release-in-russia">>>></a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-62155166183161238882017-06-19T18:47:00.000+02:002017-06-19T18:47:16.728+02:00Pavel Chukhray: Cold tango - Холодное танго (2017)<img alt="Cold tango (2017)" height="640" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/poster/117376/87436.jpg" width="435" /><br /><br />Directed by Pavel Chukhray<br />Cast: Yulia Peresild, Rinal Mukhametov, Sergey Garmash<br /><br /><img alt="Julia Peresild" height="266" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/117376/738259.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br /><br />By miracle he avoided death and returns to the house where he was born. In the house now lives the love of his life. But the hope for happiness turns sour with a terrible discovery: his beloved is the daughter of his enemy.<br /><br /> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q2PY1Y2BuGY" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-76174788640138252812017-06-10T20:23:00.001+02:002017-06-10T20:23:22.389+02:00Alena Davydova: Ivan - Иван (2016)<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Director: Alena Davydova</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cast: Kirill Polukhin, Polina Gukhman, Anastasiia Mel’nikova, Liudmila Boiarinova, Sergei Iatseniuk, </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Image result for Alena Davydova: Иван" src="https://myklad.org/posts/3r3Z1cjeq7Gh1KXSorCfmqKTfKGK1JWfd9Cokp55gqaYmcysqWloocu81w/ivan-alena-davydova-1.jpg" /> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In her desire to make “an ordinary film about ordinary people” (Manzhula 2016) Alena Davydova, born in a small town in Chuvashia, brings a fresh perspective to the Moscow-centric Russian film industry. Her full-length feature debut Ivan came out at the St Petersburg Sever Film Company, the successor of the famous Studio for the First and Experimental Film (PiEF) founded in 1989 by Aleksei Iu. German and Svetlana Karmalita to nurture emerging talent. The studio selected Davydova’s project for support in 2013 when her script for Ivan received the main prize for “best contemporary story” at the eighth national competition of family-oriented scripts “Faith. Hope. Love.” The film premiered at Kinotavr, the Open Russian Film Festival, in 2016. A rather straightforward drama about a day in the life of two ordinary people in a humble provincial town, Ivan stands out among the more usual fare of flashy commercial productions or complex art house features. This emphatic simplicity has won over the hearts of many Russian bloggers, but it also runs the risk of making the story too obvious and banal for the more sophisticated viewer looking for deeper social and psychological analyses. Despite her “quiet scrutiny” of her ordinary characters that is “devoid of both special effects and speculation on viewers’ emotions,” Davydova is not a new Vasilii Shukshin, as one film critic at the Kinotavr press conference suggested (Uminova 2016). Nor is she a new Larisa Sadilova, another prominent filmmaker from Russia’s provinces whose dedication to provincial Russia is paired with rigorous social critique. That said, Davydova’s compelling casting, convincing dialogue, and semi-detective plot in Ivan will keep many viewers engaged throughout the feature.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The film tells a story of the middle-aged ambulance driver, Ivan, who lives alone in his run-down apartment. One day, when taking out the trash, Ivan bumps into a nine-year-old girl, Tonia, who says she came from a nearby town to visit her grandmother. Tonia unceremoniously asks Ivan for food and shelter because her grandmother is gone and she cannot get in touch with her. Ivan unwillingly assumes responsibility for the opinionated girl and her lapdog, and the unlikely trio embarks on an eventful day filled with hopes, disappointments, and revelations. The viewer gradually assembles Ivan’s traumatic life story by observing his interactions with Tonia and other acquaintances as he scrambles to put together a decent outfit to wear to his daughter’s sixteenth birthday. Ivan’s life “has turned upside down” when, after a bad helicopter accident that involved “falling and burning,” the formerly intrepid pilot with a zest for life has acquired a fear of heights and failed to adjust to his new, earth-bound existence. Ivan’s current life drags on as a pale shadow of his past adventures, and both his family and friends have written him off and moved on. Only a few keep urging him to turn his life around by taking up flying again, thereby aggravating his guilt over his seeming inability to overcome his acrophobia. Others, who still care, offer doubtful half-solutions like moving to a better place or simply moving to avoid the depressing status quo. Predictably for a film with a broken adult and a precocious but compassionate child, Tonia is the only person who eventually manages to turn Ivan “right side up.” Parallel to Ivan’s narrative, the viewer puts together pieces of Tonia’s puzzle: a much more intriguing but poorly developed story of a child traveling alone, wandering the streets away from her hometown in search of a lost parent, a “brave and strong pilot.” At some point in the film, Ivan must live up to this idealized vision if he wants to preserve his growing bond with Tonia, his second chance at getting fatherhood, family, and life right.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Kirill Polukhin, one of the leading actors of the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater in St Petersburg, plays the title character with a believable balance of natural charisma and low self-esteem: reminded at each step that he is an “eagle” turned “penguin,” Ivan nevertheless projects an innate openness and charm that explain the genuine attachment to him of both Tonia and Irina, a woman who loves him despite (or perhaps because) of his current “unmanly” weakness and lack of ambition. Polukhin’s wider popularity based on television series in which he is routinely typecast as a “charismatic scoundrel” (Bobrova 2016) curiously augments his role in Ivan. The palpable chemistry between the seasoned actor and his nine-year-old acting partner, Polina Gukhman, results in compelling acting and dialogue that, in the words of kinoteatr.ru reviewers, make for an “organic” and “soulful” viewing experience that is accomplished “in one breath” (“Ivan” 2016).</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more <a href="http://www.kinokultura.com/2017/56r-ivan.shtml">>>><br /> <br /></a> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cLX7Yw52mtQ" width="560"></iframe></span> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-25487139064165158132017-06-10T20:12:00.000+02:002017-06-10T20:12:27.352+02:00Alexei Mizgirev: The Duelist - Дуэлянт (2016)<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Director: Aleksei Mizgirev</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stars: Martin Wuttke, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Vladimir Mashkov </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="Пётр Фёдоров" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/117304/621173.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://filmcombatsyndicate.blogspot.ba/2016/01/alexei-mizgirev-duelist-gets-imax.html">An adventure film</a>, with dramatic and thriller elements set against the backdrop of palaces and the noble view of the Russian capital, The Duelist centers on Yakovlev, a retired officer, who returns to St. Petersburg from a long exile. While in the city, he fights as a duelist's representative. (Nineteenth-century Russian duel law allowed for a duelist to be replaced by any one person.) Though Yakovlev fights for money, he also seeks honor and revenge against those who disgraced him, therein, challenging the Russian Providence. Yakovlev fearlessly plays with destiny as an example of traditional romantic characters from the Russian Classics.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W-4BHdC6hTs" width="560"></iframe></span><br /><br />Aleksei Mizgirev’s fourth feature-length film, The Duelist, differs significantly from what the director’s rather cineaste audience has seen before. Set in St Petersburg in 1860, the film is a contemporary version of a historical drama and costume film, with an action-driven plot and abundant cinematic effects. Although the IMAX spectacle is intended as up-to-date genre cinema made in Russia, it nevertheless adumbrates the auteur style of directing that Mizgirev pursued in his previous films, Hard-Hearted (Kremen’, 2007), Buben, Baraban (2009) and The Convoy (Konvoi, 2012). First, The Duelist echoes the gloomy urban landscapes characteristic for Mizgirev’s films about contemporary Russia; and second, the nineteenth-century characters are plunged into questions and problems which seem to matter still today. Whether auteur style or genre cinema—Mizgirev’s films reflect the director’s general interest in human behavior, in questions concerning personality and social environment, in honor and dignity as central moments of individual identity.<br /><br /> The story revolves around the professional duelist Iakovlev, who is hired by a mercenary German baron in order to stand in for others in duels. The practice of dueling, in nineteenth-century Russia an illegal but prevalent way to settle disputes and slights against honor between noblemen, was regulated by strict rules. One of them, as we are told right at the beginning of the film, stipulated the possibility of a substitute. In this role the protagonist, a handsome but glowering young man, wins duel after duel. This draws the nobility’s attention to the mysterious duelist, who has recently returned to St Petersburg and whose identity is revealed bit by bit as the story unfolds. Soon Iakovlev finds out that all duels, for which he was hired, were arranged by the cold-hearted, nefarious Count Beklemishev in order to get rid of his creditors. At the same time Iakovlev himself becomes entangled in an intrigue initiated by Beklemishev, involving the idealistic young Prince Tuchkov and his beautiful sister, Princess Marfa. When Iakovlev takes sides with the Tuchkovs, it becomes clear that—apart from feeling attracted by the blonde Princess Marfa himself—Iakovlev has an agenda of his own.<br /><br /> Iakovlev’s identity is revealed in several flashbacks. Running ashore on the Aleutian Islands as an ordinary soldier of the Tsarist army, he was rescued and cured by an Aleutian shaman who foretold him immortality. An offspring of the old noble Kolychev family, he fell victim to one of Beklemishev’s intrigues five years ago. As a young lieutenant he was provoked and offended by Beklemishev in front of St Petersburg’s nobility. The young man’s sense of honor suffered severe consequences. Beklemishev initiated Kolychev’s suspension from the Tsarist army as well as his deprivation of peerage, which drove Kolychev’s mother to commit suicide. After being flogged, he was sent to the Aleutian Islands as an ordinary soldier. There he took the identity of the late nobleman Iakovlev in order to be allowed to duel the man responsible for his misfortune, which would, besides taking revenge, enable him to restore his honor.<br /><br />Read more <a href="http://www.kinokultura.com/2017/56r-dueliant.shtml">>>></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-81054898802330478902017-05-30T18:19:00.002+02:002017-05-30T18:19:53.796+02:00Alexey Zvyagintsev: Loveless - Нелюбовь (2017)<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for andrey zvyagintsev loveless" src="http://encodeur.movidone.com/getimage/jH4_D7TvRd7mlUo_DojZjHDerSo5WeXRH0LfOMLqCH0kJAX4Z-aY2aUWjBYc-qZmSUedUFO4y40dXX9cAycuiD6zfacFNK9QEIoyN_b7t2Zu5Yc1gm1AkjX4c6_y9LNwco37h3jh9qSrEzX2u8NQQvKrSUkkagPzH8BHHqvrhBk-oJuHkH2abafAKBMD5R3S_hwT702lLDUcBeFrMicKJu48-9-IUiTds67L2WTCWyEnaWAAsujtqcjhtoA6XyfOsAI%3D?type=web" /></div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Director: Andrey Zvyagnitsev</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cast: Maryana Spivak, Alexey Rozin, Matvey Novikov, Marina Vasilyeva, Andris Keishs, Alexey Fateev.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “Loveless,” the title of the compelling and forbidding new movie by the Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (“Leviathan,” “Elena”), seems, for a while, to refer to the state of the relationship between the film’s two main characters, a Moscow couple who are on the verge of divorcing. Boris (Alexey Rozin), bearded and officious, a kind of mildly saddened Teddy bear, and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak), beautiful and knife-edged, with a buried despair of her own, still live together in the same apartment. But they’re trying to sell it off as quickly as possible, because they can barely come up with three words of civility between them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><img alt="Image result for andrey zvyagintsev loveless" src="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/films/2017/05/18/loveless-large_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwa6BP6SYHx1yiNuVthyqvQQ.jpg" height="249" width="400" /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Their marriage, or what’s left of it, has reached the toxic point of no return. No one understands this better than Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), their pale and passive 12-year-old son, who doesn’t do much besides stare at his computer between crying fits. When Alyosha disappears without a trace, his emotionally estranged parents have to come together to search for him. But no, “Loveless” isn’t a story about how the search for Alyosha brings Boris and Zhenya closer together, or makes them take stock and stop hating each other. What the movie is about, in a way that’s both potent and oblique, is something larger than the charred ashes of one dead marriage.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There have always been oppressive societies that clamp down on filmmaking, but allow just enough wiggle room of expression for a shrewd — and poetic — artist to say what’s on his mind. That was true in the Communist Czechoslovakia of the 1970s, or in the Iran of the last 30 years. It’s true, as well, of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. As a filmmaker, Andrey Zvyagintsev can’t come right out and declare, in bright sharp colors, the full corruption of his society, but he can make a movie like “Leviathan,” which took the spiritual temperature of a middle-class Russia lost in booze and betrayal, and he can make one like “Loveless,” which takes an ominous, reverberating look not at the politics of Russia but at the crisis of empathy at the culture’s core.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Boris and Zhenya have both moved on to other relationships, which are far more affectionate than the one they’re in, so that seems to be a sign of hope; after divorce comes a new beginning. Boris is with the perky, very pregnant Masha (played by Marina Vasilyeva, who suggests an Eastern European Michelle Williams), and Zhenya, between visits to the salon and a consuming relationship with her smartphone, has found the man who answers her dreams, or at least her needs: the wealthy, handsome, doting, middle-aged Anton (Andris Keishs). Love, it seems, is possible. But what kind of love?</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zvyagintsev colors in a whole society’s romantic neurosis, and he does it with the details along the sidelines. Boris has to keep his divorce hidden at his corporate sales office, because the boss is a fundamentalist Christian. (If Boris isn’t married with children, he’ll be out of a job.) Zhenya’s lover, on the other hand, has given her entré to the one-percent echelon of the new gilded Russia. The film introduces us to it in a telling moment at an outrageously ritzy restaurant where the camera lingers on a woman flirtatiously giving out her phone number…before sitting back down to dinner across from the man she’s come with. That moment speaks volumes — about a clawing-to-the-top ethos of desperate avarice that scarcely leaves room for “romance.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what does all this have to do with a missing child? Everything, it turns out. “Loveless” has been made in a forceful and deliberate socialist-realist Hitchcockian style that recalls the most celebrated films of the Romanian new wave (“4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”; “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”). The disappearance of Alyosha hangs over the movie and haunts it, and on some level it’s a missing-child procedural. Yet what’s meaningful is the way that he disappeared: He was left unsupervised, and his mother, coming home at night, assumed that he was in his room and didn’t bother to check in on him. A minor mistake…and an epic instance of neglect.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Moscow police, who lean toward thinking that he has run away (because if so, the statistics suggest he’ll likely return, and they won’t have to add to their caseload), can’t do a lot, and a local citizens’ group is more proactive. They scour the area in their orange jackets and fatigues, leaving no stone unturned. As all of this goes on, the title of “Loveless” begins to expand. A society rooted in corruption becomes a petri dish for a loveless marriage that spawns a family in which a child isn’t loved — that is, looked after — in the right way. And the result, seemingly out of nowhere (but not really), is tragic.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Read more <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/loveless-review-andrey-zvyagintsev-1202430108/">>>></a></span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r0MV02k19Ag" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-19840823650908558662017-03-29T11:51:00.002+02:002017-03-29T11:51:16.544+02:00Konchalovsky's 'Paradise' gets Best Film at Russia's Nika movie award<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for konchalovsky paradise" height="225" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xKUEqzlytTk/maxresdefault.jpg" width="400" /></div><br />'Paradise’ by Russian film director Andrei Konchalovsky won Best Picture and Best Director at Russia’s main annual national film award Nika, the country's equivalent of the Oscars.<br /><br />The 30th award ceremony was held late on March 28 at the Mossovet State Academic Theater, one of Moscow’s oldest theaters.<br /><br />The film about the WWII and the Holocaust was first screened at the Venice Film Festival, winning the Silver Lion Award for Best Director. The movie has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Award.<br /><br />"The disasters of the 20th century, and particularly the Holocaust, must never be forgotten," Konchalovsky said while receiving the prize.<br /><br />The Best Actress award went to the film's star Yulia Vysotskaya. The Best Actor went to Timofey Tribuntsev for his role in Nikolai Dostal's 'Monk and Devil'.<br /><br /><a href="http://rbth.com/arts/movies/2017/03/29/konchalovskys-paradise-gets-best-film-at-russias-nika-movie-award_729711">Source: TASS</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-15813422657350633582017-03-16T17:54:00.000+01:002017-03-16T17:54:54.641+01:00Why are European countries lining up for the new Zvyagintsev film?<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Andrey Zvyagintsev, creator of the critically acclaimed Leviathan, said his new film, Loveless, set a sales record at the Berlin film market, and was bought for release by all major European countries. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"In Berlin, deals were signed with companies from the U.K., Spain, Denmark and Finland. Rights for all European territories have been sold. What remains is to close several deals with companies from Asia and Latin America," said producer Alexander Rodnyansky at the end of the film market. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Distributors, however, have not seen a single frame of this new film by the Russian winner of the Cannes and Venice film festivals. This is because Loveless is not ready yet, and it's not clear whether Zvyagintsev will complete it by the second half of May - its world premiere is expected to be in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To clarify the situation, RBTH caught up with Zvyagintsev, who told us how the idea for his new film came about and why he's anxious about the result. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the success of Leviathan you were going to make a big film about World War II. But you're now making a completely different movie, aren’t you? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A minor correction: I was planning a film about the War even before Leviathan. It's a long-standing idea, with a written script, and I'm ready to start filming it at any time. Unfortunately, not everything depends on my desire because the project is expensive – we're talking about $15-$18 million. It will be extremely difficult for the producer to recoup that sort of money. So, I don't yet know if this film will happen in the near future. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So what is your new film about? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's the story of a family living through serious moments in their life, as the husband and wife split. I'd like this film to be compared to Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. Practically throughout the whole six episodes, 45 minutes each, all you see on screen are just the two actors - Josephson and Ullmann. And you can’t tear yourself away from the screen. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His characters are people who think and talk. She, as was fashionable in the 1960s, keeps a diary and reads out excerpts from it. Those scenes show that intelligence, the ability to analyze, civility and refinement cannot prevent a terrible catastrophe. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The idea for Loveless grew from this, and I will be honest with you - I have long been partial to that film by Bergman. Oleg Negin, who writes the scripts for all my films, discussed with me the idea of examining a marriage crisis when people who have been married for 10-12 years cannot go on living together. In the script there's an event that dispels the tangle of contradictions between the characters - their child goes missing. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At what production stage is Loveless currently? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Filming was supposed to be completed by spring 2017. Alas, Moscow weather interfered. The film takes place in Moscow, when it's warm, and so we need grass and leaves on the trees. We started filming in August and were hoping to finish by November, but it started snowing in the middle of October and the snow has remained since. So, we had to halt shooting, and we're now waiting for April in order to finish filming everything that needs to be completed. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unfortunately, all this creates certain difficulties, and that's why I started editing even though I had never done so before the completion of filming. I always edit my films sequentially - from the first scene to the last. Since editing determines the rhythm of a film, and rhythm is the musical form of a film, I think it's a mistake to suddenly launch into the 40th minute of a film and start editing it from there. But the circumstances are such that we're forced to make this mistake. It worries me, but I think we'll cope.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After your films, the Russian actors in them become famous internationally: Nadezhda Markina was nominated for a European Film Award for her role in Elena, while Elena Lyadova, the star of Leviathan, also became a well-known face. At the same time, you rarely cast actors who have worked with you before. Is this one of your principles as a director? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I never know who will star in my films. There has been just one exception: Oleg Negin and I knew that the role of the town mayor in Leviathan would be played by Roman Madyanov. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sometimes, I deliberately do not want to work with an actor who has been in my film before, but then life suddenly interferes. Such was the case, for example, with Konstantin Lavronenko. He acted in my first film, The Return, which unexpectedly became an international festival hit, winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That success, of course, put a lot of pressure on me, and I wanted to make sure that with my second film I'd not be accused of repeating myself. So for the main role in my next film, Banishment, I looked for a young actor since the character is supposed to be in his early 30s. But the longer I searched, the clearer it became to me that my prejudice against Lavronenko was groundless, and when I finally invited him for an audition, it all came together - it was his part. Yet, it so happens that apart from Kostya there is just one more person whom I have cast in a big role more than once. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more <a href="http://rbth.com/arts/movies/2017/03/14/why-are-european-countries-lining-up-for-the-new-zvyagintsev-film_719531">>>></a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-72742020985198139522017-02-21T17:49:00.000+01:002017-02-21T17:49:01.566+01:00Russian Filmmakers Advocate "Matilda" by Uchitel<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for "Matilda" by Uchitel" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/24/Matilda_(2017_film).jpg/220px-Matilda_(2017_film).jpg" width="280" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Rumors and scandals are brewing around Alexei Uchitel's new feature film "Matilda". Orthodox Christian activists and some deputies of the State Duma clamour against the film director's interpretation of historical events.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The filmmakers have been accused of denigrating the image of Nicholas II and insulting the feelings of believers. Representatives of the Russian cinema have stood up for the colleagues and written an open letter that speaks out against the return of censorship in culture. Filmmakers have declared that they want to live in a secular state, and demanded authorities at all levels to comply with the constitution. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The historical film by Alexei Uchitel tells about the famous ballerina of the Mariinsky Theatre - Matilda Kshesinskaia - and her complicated and ambiguous relationship with Nicholas II. The film director points out in an interview that the Orthodox community is eager to impose its own ideas on the society. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.russia-ic.com/news/show/23094/#.WKxujm_hAnQ"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">RiC</span></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-45693461150513076832017-01-21T22:20:00.002+01:002017-01-21T22:20:08.457+01:00The 5 most anticipated Russian movies in 20171. Paradise<br /><br />This is the story of Helmut, a senior SS officer, who arrives at a concentration camp to investigate corruption allegations. There he runs into the love of his youth, an aristocratic Russian émigré named Olga who has been incarcerated for joining the French Resistance and harboring Jewish children in her house during the Nazi occupation of France.<br /><br />2. Anna Karenina: The Vronsky Story<br /><br /><img alt="As the title suggests, Shakhnazarov’s adaptation provides a male perspective on this classic story, with Count Vronsky at the center of the movie. Here Vronsky is not depicted in his traditional role of the shrewd seducer, but rather is portrayed as a complex and multifaceted character. Anna Karenina: The Vronsky Story. Source: Kinopoisk.ru" height="294" src="https://cdn.rbth.com/980x-/all/2017/01/12/02_vronsky_b.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br /><br />This big screen adaptation of the classic Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy comes from prominent Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov, who is best known internationally for The Assassin of the Tsar starring Malcolm McDowell. <br /><br />3. Journey to China: The Mystery of Iron Mask<br /><br />Directed by Oleg Stepchenko, this sequel to the 2014 film Viy (which was based on the novel by Nikolai Gogol) was initially set to hit the screens in 2016. However, the deadline was pushed back when the project’s Chinese partners, who apparently had unconditional faith in the film’s potential for success, insisted that the script be revised and the budget increased. <br /><br />4. Guardians<br /><br />The authors describe this film as the Russian answer to Marvel Animation's Avengers trilogy. The script for this comic movie about Soviet people with superpowers was written on the fly as it was already being shot. A team of Soviet superheroes (including a bear-man named Ursus) rescue the country and the world as a whole from the threat of apocalypse.<br /><br />5. Arrhythmia Boris Khlebnikov is regarded as one of the most significant Russian directors of the 2000s. He gained worldwide recognition for his movies Koktebel and A Long and Happy Life, which won acclaim at a variety of international film festivals. In 2013, Khlebnikov suddenly switched his focus to working on television. This is his first major movie in recent years, meaning that 2017 will mark Khlebnikov's return to the big screen. Read more <a href="http://rbth.com/arts/movies/2017/01/20/the-5-most-anticipated-russian-movies-in-2017_685346">>>></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-15810388757513844682016-12-12T20:12:00.002+01:002016-12-12T20:12:37.378+01:00Sergey Mikaelian: Love by Request - Влюблен по собственному желанию (1982)<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Lovers on their own stills" src="http://www.kino-teatr.ru/movie/posters/big/8/988.jpg" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Director: Sergey Mikaelyan</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Writers: Sergey Mikaelyan, Aleksandr Vasinsky</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Stars: Oleg Yankovskiy, Evgeniya Glushenko, Vsevolod Shilovskiy</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Awards :</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Best actress Yevgeniya GLUSHENKO , Berlin International Film Festival : Berlinale, Berlin (Germany), 1983</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Premier prix et prix du meilleur travail des acteurs au Festival de l'Union soviétique, 1983</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Prix du meilleur travail des acteurs au Festival de Berlin, 1983</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Lovers of their own accord (1982)" src="http://www.kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/988/6325.jpg" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two people: Igor, an ex-athlete aimlessly living and chasing rubles to get drunk and Vera, an ugly duck librarian, try to find their luck by planning to fall in love with each other based on 'psychological conditioning'.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RmOP_yiTMU8" width="560"></iframe></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-75578771089062390892016-12-11T20:03:00.001+01:002016-12-11T20:03:16.512+01:00Pavel Lungin: Queen of Spades - Дама пик (2016)<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Queen of Spades" src="http://www.art-pictures.ru/upload/resize_cache/iblock/870/340_99999_1/8700ea51658443319bab78c3c9d3578e.jpg" /></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Director: Pavel Lungin</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cast:Kseniya Rappoport, Ivan Yankovskiy,Igor Mirkurbanov</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.art-pictures.ru/studio/films/queen-of-spades.php">Opera diva Sophia Meyer after years of exile returned to Russia.</a> The singer intends to put the "Queen of Spades" by Tchaikovsky on the stage, where he once made its debut. The play, no doubt, will be an event of the season, and all the actors posing wake up famous. About fame and money dreams of a young singer of opera troupe Andrew, and "Queen of Spades" for him the chance to achieve the desired. He is ready to do anything to get the role of Germany, and it realizes Sophia, who left for the role of the Countess. Opera diva begins a brutal game that will play all the participants involved.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">An operatic thriller about the staging of an opera in contemporary Moscow, The Queen of Spades feels at times almost like a Russian-language remake of Darren Aronofsky’s lurid ballet-themed psychodrama Black Swan. Director Pavel Lungin co-wrote the screenplay with David Seidler, who earned an Oscar for The King’s Speech. They borrow their title, key characters and selective plot elements from two related sources: Alexander Pushkin’s supernatural short story, first published in 1834, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 1890 opera of the same name.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Peak Lady (2016)" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/102381/689727.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A film festival regular and one-time best director prize-winner in Cannes, Lungin has penned librettos for operas and orchestral pieces before. His musical passion clearly shines through during the film’s operatic sequences, which are staged with great panache and energy. Premiering this week in the main competition strand at Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, The Queen of Spades is hardly subtle, but its juicy combination of technical polish, bloodthirsty action and lusty romantic melodrama could well lure a curious niche audience globally. Its next scheduled festival stopover is next month in Macau. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After decades in self-imposed exile, legendary soprano Sofia Meyer (Kseniya Rappoport) returns to Moscow to rebuild her reputation by directing and starring in The Queen of Spades, the Tchaikovsky opera which made her famous. To help realize her grand schemes, she recruits wealthy oligarchs, shady gangsters and her grudgingly cooperative twentysomething niece Lisa (Mariya Kurdenovich). Sofia also sees potential in Lisa’s broodingly intense boyfriend Andrey (Ivan Yankovsiy), an amateur tenor who has idolized the diva all his life. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Peak Lady (2016)" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/102381/689732.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Gifted with the freakish ability to shatter glass with his powerful voice ever since he was pushed into a frozen lake as a child, the obsessive Andrey slowly insinuates his way into the playing the male lead in The Queen of Spades. A Machiavellian manipulator with a heart of ice, Sofia initiates her young disciple into a glamorous late-night shadow world of illegal high-stakes casinos, where he soon develops a gambling addiction and unwisely makes Faustian deals with brutal gangland godfathers. Sofia then seduces Andrey in full view of Lisa, creating an explosive sexual tension which reaches its murderous crescendo when all three are onstage during the climactic opera scenes. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Queen of Spades has a kind of fruity, oversaturated, borderline-camp mania that feels all too Russian at first. The opening act will test viewer endurance with its soapy emotional dynamics and broad-bush archetypes, especially Sofia, a cackling femme fatale who appears to be channeling Cruella de Vil. But Lungin is no amateur, and the torrid tone starts making more sense as the story evolves beyond realism into something more artfully stylized. Recurring flashbacks to Andrey’s nightmarish plunge into the icy lake and a scene involving the jealous Lisa smashing up a gallery of mannequins are strong visual set-pieces. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/queen-spades-review-950530">>>></a></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uBEbF1SfA5Y" width="560"></iframe></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-30938378929990261812016-12-10T21:25:00.001+01:002016-12-10T21:25:16.075+01:00Alexey Krasovsky: Collector - Коллектор (2016)<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Collector stills" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/posters/big/3/117743.jpg" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Director: Alexey Krasovsky</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cast:Konstantin Khabenskiy, Polina Agureeva (voice), Valentina Lukashchuk (voice), Kseniya Buravskaya</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Awards : </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Best actor Konstantin KHABENSKY , Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2016 </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Best Cinematography Denis FIRSTOV , Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2016 </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prix du Conseil Régional de Normandie, meilleur premier film Honfleur Russian Film Festival, Honfleur (France), 2016 </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prix François Chalais du meilleur scénario Honfleur Russian Film Festival, Honfleur (France), 2016 </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A lithe and lean one-man show, “Collector” is a crackling little high-wire act only sent tumbling to earth by its very final one-twist-too-many. Up to that point, it’s a kicky pleasure, a triumph of sharp scripting, shooting, editing, and acting over the obvious limits of time and resources. A canny first film from Russian director Alexei Krasovskiy, it was shot in one single week, almost entirely in one single location, with just one single actor, so it’s a pretty singular achievement all round. And to deliver a credible genre-inflected thriller in that mold takes not just a gapless, unflagging screenplay, but inventive camerawork and a massive central performance, to keep us all from fidgeting in our seats. But that’s exactly what Krasovskiy brings with “Collector,” a movie that makes no claims to being high art, but should be admired for its artfulness nonetheless.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img alt="'Collector' Review" src="http://i1.wp.com/pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/collector-karlovy-vary.jpg?crop=116px%2C0px%2C904px%2C503px&resize=670%2C377&ssl=1" height="225" width="400" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And speaking of artful, our main character here is quite the dodger, a fast-talking, quick thinking, utterly amoral Muscovite debt collector, and the largely autonomous star operator in his company (“I make more money in a day than your whole department does in a month,” he snarls to his boss at one point). Artur (Konstantin Khabenskiy) is a master manipulator, a flawless liar, and apparently a heartless bastard, impervious to threats or entreaties, certain there is no sob story he hasn’t heard a million times before, and none that he has ever fully believed. Artur is not just good at his evil job, he enjoys it, relishing the inevitable capitulation of his victims as a lion does its kill. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yet this is a subtler, more psychological method of debt collection than the old kicking doors and cracking skulls model that more readily springs to mind as the cinematic archetype. From atop a modern high-rise, in a sleekly furnished office with a plate glass window overlooking a terrace and the lights of the metropolis beyond, Artur gets even the most incorrigible creditors to cough up using no implement more threatening than a telephone receiver. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We always hear both sides of the conversation, and that, along with the conceit of assistant Liza (Polina Agureeva) and security guard Evgeny (Kirill Pletnyov) talking to him from adjacent rooms, we get the impression of a film a great deal more populous that it really is — similar to the trick that the nearest touchpoint, Steven Knight’s “Locke,” managed to pull off. And the dialogue is so crisply written and gamely performed that we get a sense of them all as people anyway. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Read more<a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/collector-review-kollektor-1201808964/"> >>></a></span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c9HKYBgV8Sc" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-48364149859969026632016-12-10T12:33:00.001+01:002016-12-10T12:33:08.527+01:00‘Luna Park’s’ Pavel Lungin Plans ‘Esau’ Adaptation, Gulag Epic<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for pavel lungin" height="271" src="data:image/jpeg;base64,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" width="400" /></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pavel Lungin (“Taxi Blues,” “Luna Park”), one of the key filmmakers of the new Russian cinema that emerged in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is currently developing two new projects: an English-language project based on Israeli writer Meir Shalev’s 1991 novel “Esau,” and a film about a Soviet gulag labor camp.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> “Esau’s” story is about two brothers. One left Israel and lives in the U.S. and then tries to rediscover his brother. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Since I am Jewish, this story touches me a great deal,” Lungin explained at this week’s Marrakech Film Festival, which he attended for a country tribute to Russia. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He went on: “I think that Shalev is a wonderful writer. It doesn’t make sense to set this story in Russia. The question posed by the story is can you be Jewish when you’re living outside Israel and at the same time if you go to Israel, do you become Israeli rather than Jewish.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The second film is a high-budget project about a gulag forced labor camp during the Stalin dictatorship. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Stalinism had certain parallels with Ivan the Terrible. I want to make a film about how people lived in the gulag, how it was possible that innocent Russians could incarcerate each other. The guards and prisoners were innocent and had to survive in terrible conditions.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lunging said that he doesn’t want to base the story on better known accounts such as that by Solzhenitsyn, and is currently researching real-life stories and personal memoirs. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The key issue that interests him is the force of will of the survivors: “How can you survive, how can you find a reason to live in the midst of such suffering? he asked. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He went on: “The secret of survival. The power of love. The importance of human relations. I think that despite the awful suffering of the gulag, the ability to survive also revealed something profoundly optimistic in human nature. We are not beasts.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lungin’s most recent movie, “Queen of Spades,” a contemporary operatic thriller based on a short story written by Alexander Pushkin, was initially developed with David Seidler, screenwriter of “The King’s Speech,” and then by Steven Walsh, since Lunging initially planned to make the film in English. The movie had its world premiere at November’s Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival where it won the Audience Prize. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The story turns on a famous soprano singer who returns to Moscow after decades in self-imposed exile, and attempts to recapture her past glory by directing and starring in the Tchaikovsky opera of the same name that once made her famous. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The depiction of a casino-style world set against a high culture setting has been interpreted by some as a metaphor for modern Russia. Lungin explained that what attracted him to the original nineteenth century short story was that it’s about someone who doesn’t believe in justice and therefore either steals or plays cards to achieve success. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This outlook was very dear to Pushkin and is now returning to Russia after a more optimistic period in the late 20th century after the fall of Communism. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“My country has changed a lot in recent years,” said Lungin. “We don’t yet understand where it’s heading. People are now much more pessimistic. The great Russian empire, before the 1917 revolution, was like our grandmother, the Soviet Union was like our mother and the new Russia is a bit like a daughter. But she’s still in her adolescence and is working out who she is. Everyone is a bit confused.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lungin initially made his name with “Taxi Blues” and “Luna Park,” More recently, he has directed pictures with a strong religious and metaphysical dimension, including “The Island” and “Tsar.” He also shot several episodes of TV series “Rodina,” a Russian political thriller based on Israel’s “Hatufim” – the basis for the American TV series “Homeland.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Like any period of adolescence, Russia is caught in a highly emotional state of mind. Lungin’s early films were made in a period of great change, where there was tremendous optimism throughout the whole world, the director said, adding that he was interested to show the new movements and new types of characters that were emerging. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now “Russia isn’t dead, there continues to be debate, but the questions are now perhaps more metaphysical, as people try to work out Russia’s identity.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lungin said that this led him to films that worked at a more deeper personal level, exploring more spiritual aspects, such as “The Island” and “Tsar.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Tsar,” about Ivan the Terrible, was a metaphor for Joseph Stalin, although some think it depicts Putin, Lungin stated. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I was interested in exploring the mania of the strong man, the moment when someone in power sees himself as God. Some powerful figures stop at a certain point. But other powerful people have no limit,” he commented. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lungin believes that there is a long historic tendency in Russia for rulers to become an almost godlike figure. In modern Russia, there are some groups and advisers that are trying to push Putin in this direction and make him a kind of dictator figure, Lungin contended. But he said that he believes that Putin doesn’t want that. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">His recent TV series “Rotina,” like the US series “Homeland,” also deals with issues of political skullduggery, but is set in 1999, which some critics said demonstrated cowardice to address problems in Russia under Putin.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more<a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/luna-park-pavel-lungin-esau-adaptation-gulag-epic-1201938272/"> >>> </a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-23964986985950382302016-11-23T11:59:00.002+01:002016-11-23T11:59:13.961+01:00Russian war film set to open amid controversy over accuracy of events - Panfilov’s 28 Directors: Kim Druzhinin, Andrey Shalopa<br />Writer: Andrey Shalopa<br />Stars: Aleksandr Ustyugov, Aleksey Morozov, Amadu Mamadakov<br /><br /><img alt="A still from Panfilov’s 28" height="240" src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8a458afdcdba2c45c4aab0c80a62c2bcecdde28e/268_0_1257_754/master/1257.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=d2d92d521135d26cf2e6540d0262c02e" width="400" /><br /><br />Every Soviet schoolchild was taught about the heroic feats of the last 28 members of Ivan Panfilov’s division, which in late 1941 fought to the death to stop a Nazi tank assault on Moscow in one of the best known episodes of the Soviet war effort. <br /><br />“Russia is vast, but there is nowhere to retreat – Moscow is behind us,” one of the Red Army soldiers, armed at the end with just Molotov cocktails and grenades, said as the attack was halted. <br /><br />But as a film about the events, Panfilov’s 28, opens in Russia this week, controversy rumbles on over the fact that many of the details of that last stand – both in the film and versions pre-dating it – appear to have been invented. <br /><br />Arguments over the upcoming film and the mythology around the episode in general began last spring, when Sergei Mironenko, the director of Russia’s state archive, gave an interview stating that while there had indeed been a bloody battle outside Moscow, not was all as many had understood it. <br /><br />His words provoked such outrage that over the summer the archive posted online a 1948 internal Soviet military report into the events, which came to the conclusion that a journalist from the Red Army’s newspaper had made up the particulars of the story, inventing quotes and ignoring the fact that some of the soldiers had survived and one was believed to have surrendered to the Germans. <br /><br />The legend was cooked up to fit in with the Soviet demand that soldiers should fight to the death rather than surrender. <br /><br />Vladimir Medinsky, the culture minister, reacted furiously to the intervention, saying it was not the job of archivists to make historical evaluations, and if Mironenko wanted to change professions, he should do so. Shortly after, Mironenko was fired. <br /><br />The nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky said in recent weeks that he had called at a government meeting for Mironenko to be fired. He claimed his uncle had fought in Panfilov’s division and said those griping about the exact numbers were missing the point. “It’s unacceptable for someone from the archives to start telling the whole country that there were no Panfilov heroes,” he said. <br /><br />Medinsky later went further in his defence of the film and his disgust for those who questioned the story. <br /><br />“It’s my deep conviction that even if this story was invented from the start to the finish, even if Panfilov never existed, even if there was nothing at all, it’s a sacred legend which it’s simply impossible to besmirch. And people who try to do that are total scumbags.” <br /><br />Medinsky said he would like to send such people, who “poked their dirty, greasy fingers into the history of 1941” back to the war period in a time machine and leave them in a trench to face Nazi tanks armed with just a hand grenade. <br /><br />Panfilov’s division included many central Asians, and last month Putin and Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev watched the film together. <br /><br />Under Putin, victory in the second world war has become the main building block of modern Russian identity, and criticism of the Red Army or mentions of the darker sides of the war effort are unwelcome.<br /><br /><br />Read more <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/23/russian-war-film-set-to-open-against-controversy-over-accuracy-of-events">>>></a><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fXTFeG6ques" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-81510858835213406012016-11-12T21:00:00.001+01:002016-11-12T21:00:12.577+01:00Sergey Snezhkin: Maringolds in Flower / Cvety kalenduly - Цветы календулы (1998)<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="movie poster" height="640" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/3/3f/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B0.jpg" width="461" /></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Director: Sergey Sniezhkin </span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Cast:Era Ziganshina, Marina Solopchenko, Kseniya Rappoport, </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of all the national cinemas in the world, that of Russia has the most fruitful relationship with literature. This extends beyond the dull and plodding genre of the literary adaptation or the more general "book of the film" treatment to any novel whose widespread success uninspired directors want to cash in on. Russians filmmakers have managed to be inspired by literature in the artistic and spiritual sense rather than just finding a plot idea which will bring in the punters. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As such, literature is a point of departure for many Russian filmmakers and not something whose content merely can be replicated in another medium. This has produced a number of adaptations which seem to merit consideration independently of the text on which they were based, including Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg's Shinel' (The Overcoat, 1927), Andrei Tarkovsky's Soliaris (1969-72), Alexei German's Moi drug Ivan Lapshin (My Friend Ivan Lapshin, 1983) and much of Alexandr Sokurov's oeuvre. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">However, the influence of literature extends far beyond using books as a direct source. Sergei Sniezhkin's Cvety kalenduly (Marigolds in Flower, 1998) is a film which takes its inspiration from the great Russian dramatist and short-story writer Anton Chekhov without its plot being directly based on any of his published works. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The action takes place in a dacha just outside St Petersburg some time shortly after the collapse of Communism. The removal of the tyrannical regime has done nothing to relieve the ills of the Protazovs and it has if anything made them worse. Georgia Protazov was a poet who collaborated heavily with the Party and in return was feted as a national hero. However, with the coming of perestroika his reputation was re-evaluated and murky truths dug up from his past. What is more, the MTV generation now has little interest in poetry and literature, least of all Protazov.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This humiliating fall from grace is too much for Protazov's widow, Seraphima, who had her heart set on a place in posterity, rather than infamy, for her husband. If that wasn't bad enough, she has to battle with her family over what to do with the inherited dacha. She wants to create a museum to her late husband, while her three bitchy granddaughters would rather sell up and move to the city for a more adventurous life.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the midst of this set of mutually antagonistic personalities, arrive two men who offer more money to spend the night in the spare room than can possibly be refused, even if it is the night of carnival-style family celebrations for Seraphima's birthday. However, they have more in mind than just staying the night in the dacha.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sniezhkin, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mikhail Konvalchuk, certainly has the keen eye for the minutiae of human behaviour necessary to pull this kind of film off. With the action rarely extending beyond the walls of the dacha, Sniezhkin has to rope in all the attention to the details of character he can without going overboard and making his characters overly stylised. This he manages to achieve with only occasional lapses of judgement.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not only that, Konvalchuk and Sniezhkin have attempted a brave plot which tackles both specific issues of the post-perestroika period and more timeless observations. As the production notes rightly say: "A century has passed [since Chekhov's time] and Russia hasn't changed much, despite revolutions and wars."</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more<a href="http://www.ce-review.org/99/11/kinoeye11_horton2.html"> >>></a></span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dBCJIY9shAo" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-12936031151194574462016-11-02T16:14:00.000+01:002016-11-02T16:14:28.295+01:00Tatyana Lukashevich: The Foundling - Подкидыш (1939)<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Foundling stills" src="http://www.kino-teatr.ru/movie/posters/big/6/5276.jpg" /></div><br />Director: Tatyana Lukashevich<br />Cast: Veronika Lebedeva, Faina Ranevskaya, Pyotr Repnin<br /><br /><img alt="Кадр из фильма Подкидыш, 1939 год.jpg" height="291" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%B4%D1%80_%D0%B8%D0%B7_%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BC%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%8B%D1%88%2C_1939_%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br />Little Natasha went out and got lost in a big city. Her fate was attended by all whom she met in her fascinating, full of cheerful adventure travel. Everything, of course, ended well. And while Natasha was wandering around town, she made a lot of friends, among both adults and children. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c6aMuwC70uc" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-59537703017400047302016-10-31T19:41:00.002+01:002016-10-31T19:41:35.924+01:00World’s oldest actor Vladimir Zeldin dies aged 101<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Died Vladimir Zeldin" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/news/10020/98313.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Vladimir Zeldin, believed to be the world’s oldest working actor, has died aged 101, after spending 71 years at the same Moscow theatre. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Russian actor appeared on stage as recently as last month, using a walking stick due to a broken hip, to appear in the play The Dance Teacher by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">He had appeared in the play more than 1,000 times, Tass reported. The theatre had planned for him to appear again next February, to mark his 102nd birthday. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to colleagues, Zeldin had been ill and spent the last three weeks in hospital. He died in the early hours of Monday morning. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Read more<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/31/worlds-oldest-actor-vladimir-zeldin-dies-aged-101"> >>></a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-71027798304415937142016-10-31T16:21:00.001+01:002016-10-31T16:21:39.410+01:00Nikolay Khomeriki: Icebreaker - Ледокол (2016)<img height="640" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNjYwOTM3NDMtY2ZmZi00OWM5LThhMTEtNzQyNzBhOGU4ODRhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU0ODY1MzE@._V1_.jpg" width="448" /><br /><br />Director: Nikolay Khomeriki<br />Cast: Pyotr Fyodorov, Sergey Puskepalis, Aleksandr Pal <br /><br />The film is based on real-life events of 1985 when the icebreaker “Mikhail Somov” was caught in the Antarctic ice and drifted for 133 days in ominous silence and extreme cold. The captain had no right to make a mistake. Any wrong maneuver could bring death upon the crew and the heavy ice could squash the ship. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hlrENUkt0X4" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-18391120020355531332016-10-27T17:27:00.002+02:002016-10-27T17:27:42.222+02:00Roman Artemyev: The man from the future - Человек из будущего (2016)<img alt="The man from the future stills" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/posters/big/0/117250.jpg" height="400" width="279" /><br /><br />Director:Roman Artemyev <br />Cast<br />Aleksandr Chislov, Seseg Khapsasova, Mariya Skornitskaya, Dmitry Blokhin, Ivan Dobronravov, Aleksandr Bashirov<br /><br />The Man from the Future was written and directed by Roman Artem’ev, a 2003 graduate of the Film Institute VGIK, who is best known for his work as an actor in such films as Children of the Arbat (Deti Arbata, 2004) and Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Groznyi, 2009). This sci-fi comedy tells the story of a middle-aged science teacher named Merkur’ev who saves the planet from a fallen piece of the sun by building a “sun diverter.” According to Merkur’ev’s calculations the proper functioning of the invention depends on the successful impregnation of a cashier named Gulia with the “savior of mankind.” The full-length feature is an expanded version of a fifteen-minute short film called The Savior (Spasitel’, 2013), which claimed the grand prize at the Russian short-film festival “Shorter” (Koroche). <br /><br />The illogical plot works well within the context of a fifteen-minute comedy of errors: Merkur’ev (Aleksandr Chislov) approaches the wrong Gulia (Seseg Khapasova) and only realizes his mistake after they “immaculately consummate.” He runs off naked into the night, presumably to earnestly summon and seduce the proper Gulia with the same absurd explanation. At the end of the film Merkur’ev gleefully returns to his first Gulia, announcing that she was the right one all along. The short version was an effective joke with good pacing and a well-timed punch line, but the same joke fails to amuse in the 75-minute version. The short film was funny because the question of Merkur’ev’s authenticity and his true intentions remained unanswered. Was he really a scientist? Was he really from the future? Was he simply a madman taking advantage of apocalyptic circumstances to live out a sexual fantasy? In the full-length film the director ruins the absurdist sketch with futile attempts to make sense of a far-fetched premise. It’s like watching one of Daniil Kharms’ “Incidents” be turned into a crime drama: Why exactly did the old women fall out of a window? <br /><br /><img src="http://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/images/movie_images/a9bc8ee97714ee21b27cfb242b31bd7b.jpg" height="266" width="400" /><br /><br /><br />In The Man from the Future Merkur’ev is not really from the future, but tells this white lie to convince both Gulias to go along with his strange plan. After Merkur’ev gains national fame for his heroic deed his fib is exposed and the public assumes that he is a fraud. Merkuriev, too, remains unsure whether it was really his actions that re-directed the falling piece of the sun. The connection between his earth-saving invention (the sun diverter) and the need to impregnate a cashier named Gulia is not made clear. Despite the high production quality, the film has a B-movie feel. The plot makes little sense and the characters lack both dramatic depth and comedic charm. The film’s true virtue lies in the director’s parodic play with American and Soviet cinematic repertoire. With artful diligence, Artem’ev demonstrates an arsenal of eclectic cinematic knowledge.<br /><br />The film is set in modern-day Moscow, but makes visual allusions to popular American sci-fi comedies. The opening scene of the film depicts a nearly empty supermarket. Eerie music plays as flickering overhead fluorescent lamps illuminate empty aisles. Gulia (who we later find out is from Bishkek and therefore is “the wrong Gulia” because according to Merkur’ev’s calculations the mother of the savior must be from Tashkent) is a cashier closing up the store on the day the world ends. Her last customers buy vodka with comical nonchalance and invite Gulia to join them. She quietly responds that she prefers to remain in the store’s basement, where she has already “prepared everything.” The ominous tone is tinged with cartoonish farce. The two men preparing for a last bender and the young cashier preparing to hide out seem resigned to their fate, unbothered by the impending doom. Apocalyptic themes and apathy are regular features of post-Soviet cinema, but Western-style optimism and the righting of wrongs outshine the few dark moments in The Man from the Future.<br /><br />After the two men leave Gulia begins to close up the store. Suddenly a nude Merkuriev mysteriously appears. Startled by a noise, Gulia fearfully looks around as an empty shopping cart rolls down the aisle. This recalls the opening library scene from the American film Ghostbusters (1984). The appearance of a nude man “from the future” also recalls the first Terminator (1984). Two hapless government agents with skinny black ties in pursuit of Merkur’ev evoke similar figures from American cinema, primarily Men in Black (1997).<br /><br />Read more <a href="http://www.kinokultura.com/2016/54r-chelovek-iz-budushchego.shtml">>>></a><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZIVyFPdr_ME" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-57688008811245656762016-09-19T19:10:00.000+02:002016-09-19T19:13:07.354+02:00Andrei Konchalovsky: Paradise - Рай (2016)Director: Andrei Konchalovsky<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1302985709634274734" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Cast: Julia Vysotskaya, Christian Clauß, Philippe Duquesne, Vera Voronkova, Jakob Diehl, Peter Kurth, Victor Sukhorukov, Pyotr Mikhalkov, <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Paradise Rai Venice" height="225" src="https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/paradise-rai-venice.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1" width="400" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Rarely has the word “Paradise” been superimposed across a gloomier image than in the opening credits of Andrei Konchalovsky’s new film, as the screams of a Russian woman recently arrested by Nazis echo through a dim, dank prison corridor — shot in soberest monochrome. Konchalovsky’s robust, absorbing Holocaust drama is built on such unlikely junctures of grace and despair. Centered principally on the sometimes tense, sometimes tender relationship between an aristocratic concentration camp inmate and the SS officer with whom she shares a fleeting romantic history, the film’s tone and outlook is changeable throughout — down to a striking, only semi-successful framing device of docu-style testimonies that hover deliberately between worlds. An uneasy sit cushioned by lustrous, period-evoking B&W lensing and the outstanding performances of Julia Vysotskaya and Christian Clauß, “Paradise’s” enduringly resonant historical focus should secure it the international distribution that largely eluded its veteran helmer’s previous, Venice-garlanded feature “The Postman’s White Nights.”</span><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1302985709634274734" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After “Son of Saul’s” immersive first-person camera gave viewers a visceral new point of view on the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, the bar for innovation in depicting what is already a comprehensively filmed passage of history was further raised. With its self-consciously classical aesthetic — down to the imposition of artificial wear and tear on the image, creating the impression of a long-buried print — “Paradise” looks emphatically back rather than forward, but its perspective is an unusual one, alternating even-handedly between the raddled, subjective accounts of Nazi oppressor and victim, until they meet ambiguously somewhere in the middle. Among other, less earthly implications, the “paradise” of the title refers to the Aryan idyll that the former repeatedly cites as a motivating dream. Yet the longer he talks — in the bare studio environment, without clear location or era, that Konchalovsky has devised for the film’s “interview” sequences — the less clear it becomes whether or not he believes his own rhetoric. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The film opens in 1942, as refined Russian immigrant Olga (Vysotskaya), a Vogue fashion editor also serving the French Resistance in Paris, is arrested by the Gestapo for harboring two Jewish children in her apartment. Her case is assigned to French-Nazi collaborating officer Jules (Philippe Duquesne), a lecherous family man who seems willing to cut Olga a deal in return for sexual favors. When he abruptly drops out of proceedings, however, she is shipped off to an unspecified, maximum-brutality concentration camp, where she is reunited with her two young wards, but otherwise given every reason to fear the worst.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Philippe is one of only three talking heads in the film’s parallel stream of direct-to-camera statements, and his unexpectedly curtailed arc — after a generous, deliberate window into his home and work lives — initially seems a curious red herring in a film that, at 131 minutes, is confidently unhurried in reaching its narrative heart. It proves the critical key, however, to unlock the relevance and resonance of those enigmatic, after-the-fact interviews, which thereafter alternate the views of a shorn-headed Olga and Helmut (Clauß), the handsome, high-ranking SS golden boy who is assigned by Heinrich Himmler himself (Victor Sukhorukov, in an eccentric caricature) to a senior commanding position in Olga’s camp. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Olga and Helmut immediately recognize each other from a playful, several-summers-ago flirtation — itself detailed in recurring, gleamingly sunlit holiday-film footage that is excerpted in the most nostalgically bittersweet of the film’s rotating registers. As their rekindled but still anxious relationship comes to the fore in the film’s second half, “Paradise” faces an array of potentially redemptive denouements befitting its 1940s wartime-melodrama styling. None of those are exactly promised by the characters’ more detached, rueful interviews — on which the film leans perhaps a little too heavily for emotional clarity in its latter stages. Helmut’s remembrances ricochet between cynical, even critical appraisals of the Nazi ideals and deluded pride in them (“I don’t have to justify my actions; I’ve become an Übermensch”), while Olga dispassionately describes her own suffering while growing more agitated on his behalf: “He knows and appreciates Brahms and Tolstoy. Who did this to him?” </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Both actors — blessed with endlessly gaze-worthy faces, in which cinematographer Alexander Simonov’s meticulous lighting keeps finding new expressive accents — are remarkable, their performances entirely complementary in their silences and guarded surges of emotion. There’s a livewire supporting turn, too, from Jakob Diehl as Helmut’s more nakedly skeptical friend and fellow officer Dietrich, restless with self-disgust and homoerotic feeling. Other performances can err on the side of shrill, while matters are not helped by the film’s distracting, frankly clumsy dubbing of actors at certain points — a retrograde detail that is unwelcome in the film’s otherwise careful evocation of golden-age cinema. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xKUEqzlytTk" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Read more <a href="http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/paradise-review-2-1201854654/">>>></a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-45318930284905127702016-08-25T21:53:00.002+02:002016-08-25T21:53:21.453+02:00Kirill Serebrennikov's new movie nominated for 2016 European Film Awards<br /><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Image result for kirill serebrennikov the student" 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" /></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The European Film Academy has announced the longlist of nominees for the prestigious European Film Awards. The only Russian film in the list was film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov's The Student, which made its debut in Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The film, which takes place in a modern-day Russian city, revolves around the coming-of-age problems experienced by teenager Veniamin (played by Pyotr Skvortsov) and his relationship with teachers, peers and his single mother as he falls into Christian fundamentalism.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The picture is essentially a film version of the eponymous production at the Moscow Gogol Center (Serebrennikov is its artistic director), which premiered in early 2015. The play and the film are based on a play by German playwright Marius von Mayenburg.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"I met Marius long before the premiere performance of the play The Student in Berlin's Schaubühne Theater in 2012," Serebrennikov told RBTH. "Later, we met and I invited him to make a Russian version, moving the action and types to Russia. He kindly agreed."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to the director, the success of the stage production inspired him to make a film version. "The topic is of concern to all – the presence of obscurantism, some bigotry and religious fanaticism in our lives that change it every day," he said.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Filming took place in Kaliningrad (about 800 miles west of Moscow) in August 2015. "It was an absolutely happy time! Everyone worked in a concerted effort," recalled Serebrennikov. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The film stars Yulia Aug and Viktoriya Isakova as well as actors from the Gogol Center Theater. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Serebrennikov's rivals at the European Film Awards 2016 include Paul Verhoeven's Elle, Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins, Pedro Almodovar's Julieta and Thomas Vinterberg's The Commune.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Read more<a href="http://rbth.com/arts/movies/2016/08/25/kirill-serebrennikovs-new-movie-nominated-for-2016-european-film-awards_624193"> >>></a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1302985709634274734.post-37229589170927681992016-06-10T03:04:00.001+02:002016-06-10T03:04:01.692+02:00Andrei Zaitsev: 14+ - Четырнадцать плюс (2015)<img alt="14+ (2015)" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/poster/115193/79390.jpg" /><br /><br />Director: Andrei Zaitsev<br />Screenplay: Andrei Zaitsev<br />Cast: Gleb Kaliuzhnyi, Ul’iana Vaskovich, Ol’ga Ozollapinia<br /><br /><img alt="Глеб Калюжный" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/115193/601867.jpg" height="266" width="400" /><br /><br />Andrei Zaitsev’s feature film, 14+, opens boldly with a phantasmagoric montage of multicolored khrushchevkas, congested city streets and local trains. Aleksei Sulima’s rendition of Adriano Celentano’s classic, “Ciao Ragazzi,” blares over these images, making Moscow’s urban outskirts seem not at all depressing, but cheerful and full of hidden potential. This opening effectively establishes the film’s tone, which is nostalgic and idealistic, with hints of self-conscious irony. 14+ represents Zaitsev’s second attempt at a coming-of-age story. His previous feature, The Layabouts (Bezdel’niki, 2011), was loosely based on the life of Kino frontman Viktor Tsoi and focused on young rock stars’ experiences with love. 14+ tells the story of first love between two ordinary teens, Alesha and Vika, who come together despite belonging to rivaling schools. In this film, Zaitsev is interested in not only retelling the age-old tale of mismatched young lovers, but also commenting on how teens experience romantic love in the age of social networks. In addition, the film is about adolescent friendship and interactions between single mothers and their sons in contemporary Russia. Compared to such recent films as Emir Baigazin’s Harmony Lessons (Uroki garmonii, 2013) and Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s The Tribe (Plemya, 2014), 14+ presents a relatively wholesome and optimistic view of youth, putting forward a new “positive hero.” Unfortunately, in constructing this hero, Zaitsev leans too heavily on Western adolescent-comedy tropes, producing a film that rehashes the male fantasy of a nerdy boy who gets the beautiful girl.<br /><br /><img alt="Ульяна Васькович" height="266" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/115193/601868.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br /><br /><br />One of the interesting features of 14+ is its relationship to the earlier Russian film about a fresh-faced and awkward youth, Aleksei Balabanov’s Brother (Brat 1997). Zaitsev creates this connection in the opening credits, placing the movie poster of Brother in the background of the shot. The poster belongs to Alesha, who loves the now classic film and looks up to its anti-hero, Danila Bagrov. Like Alesha, who idolizes Danila without imitating him, Zaitsev pays homage to Balabanov’s film without appropriating its detached tone and graphic violence. Similarly to Brother, 14+ features amateur actors who turn in naturalistic performances. While Balabanov took advantage of Sergei Bodrov Jr.’s appeal as an unseasoned actor, Zaitsev went as far as to find his leading actors (Gleb Kaliuzhnyi and Ul’iana Vaskovich) through the social networking site Vkontakte. Danila and Alesha are products of similar socio-economic circumstances, despite growing up in different eras. Both are young men who lack positive father figures, but who respond to this absence in strikingly different ways. Danila, a former soldier, is a socially awkward but frighteningly competent killer with a consistent but unconventional moral framework. Alesha acts out in much more typical, non-violent ways. He is non-threatening and capable of maintaining stable friendships, as well as making new friends, despite lacking social graces. While Danila doesn’t hesitate to use force against his enemies or to approach romantic interests, Alesha obsessively ponders his choices, avoiding confrontations with bullies and with the object of his crush. The question of whether Alesha will one day become “a Danila” hangs over the film, and Zaitsev raises it in playful ways, particularly at the end of the film. However, for the most part, 14+ makes clear that Brother is the gangster fantasy of this ordinary hero and not a blueprint for his behavior.<br /><br /><img alt="14+ (2015)" height="226" src="http://kino-teatr.ru/movie/kadr/115193/625509.jpg" width="400" /><br /><br />While it is refreshing to see an incorruptible young hero in a Russian film, it is also a shame that, as a character, Alesha lacks Danila’s enigma and unpredictability. Zaitsev’s hero and story follow too many of the conventions of coming-of-age dramas and adolescent comedies. In addition to having an absent father, Alesha is also unlucky enough to grow up with an overbearing but ineffectual mother. School fails to engage him, but that is only because his teachers are out of touch, abusive or even drunk on the job. The bullies from Vika’s school threaten his safety but he earns their respect with cleverness instead of violence. Alesha even manages to bring together the nerds and the “Queen Bees,” thus proving that cool girls would rather hang out with geeks than neighborhood bullies. Those who are familiar with such American films as Can't Buy Me Love (1987, dir. Steve Rash), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982, dir. Amy Heckerling) or Superbad (2007, dir. Greg Mottola), will have no trouble predicting the plot of 14+. Zaitsev incorporates the tropes made famous by these American classics into a stylish and earnest film, but does not go so far as too subvert them.<br /><br />Read more <a href="http://www.kinokultura.com/2015/50/50r-14plus.shtml">>>></a><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DtsXnwbbVt4" width="560"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1