User Reviews

This may be the first Russian movie I saw that did not end tragically. There were the normal problems of living in Moscow, particularly for the 3 young women trying to make it under very difficult circumstances. The things they do (particularly Lyudmilla) are funny and yet give us a glimpse into how difficult it must have been for them. Katya, the main character, goes through her trials but comes out on top. She does better than anyone else (out of the 3), even raises a daughter (without a husband), but she secretly longs for a man in her life. After many failed attempts are relationships she accidentally meets the man who turns out to be the perfect one for her. However, they too go through some struggles before coming to the final realization that they belong together. It is a wonderful story of struggles, successes, and life in general. The acting was wonderful, particularly the actress who played Katya. Her young daughter (Alexandra) was adorable. The scene I liked the most was Gosha invites Katya and her daughter to a picnic, to get to know each other better (after declaring that he is going to marry Katya). Katya is tired and she just falls asleep in a chair in the fresh air. Gosha gently puts a blanket on her. Very simple, but very caring and touching. There are many wonderful moments in the movie. The humor is sprinkled throughout and it is very refreshing to see a movie like this one. The most valuable thing to me was it gave a glimpse into life in the USSR, and yet we can relate to the story and the characters on a human level.

The second Best Foreign Language Film winner from the Soviet Union was something impressive. "Moskva slezam ne verit" (called "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" in English) starts out portraying three college friends in 1958, and picks up twenty years later.

In 1958, Katya (Vera Alentova) is motivated, hard-working and bright, while Liudmila (Irina Muravyova) is manipulative, shallow and scheming, and Antonina (Raisa Ryazanova) is shy and simple. They're all from the countryside, but all looking to get jobs in the city. Over the next few days, Antonina ends up with one Nikolai, and these two are the most traditional; Liudmila ends up with hockey player Sergei. Katya, meanwhile, gets filmed for a TV project on the factory by cinematographer Rudolph, who ends up getting her pregnant. They try to talk things over at a park bench, but he just leaves.

Twenty years later, the movie focuses on Katya's redemption, one might say. She is now the director at the factory (and even gets to drive to work, practically unheard of in the USSR), and her daughter Alexandra is doing quite well. Granted, Katya's successful in her public life, but what about privately? It looks as though her personal life will remain empty until she meets one Gosha (Alexei Batalov), an honest, outspoken, perceptive fellow. She does meet Rudolph again - and this time he's going by his real name Rodion (he called himself Rudolph because western names were popular in the '50's) - but she leaves him at the bench.

This movie makes an interesting use of duality. There are two meetings in the park; Rudolph/Rodion leaves Katya the first time, but she leaves him the second time. Rudolph/Rodion makes two speeches about how TV is the wave of the future and will eliminate theater, movies, and books. There are two trips to the countryside. Katya twice falls asleep crying. Katya is twice filmed for a TV interview by Rudolph/Rodion; she's working at the factory the first time, and she's the director the second time. And finally, there are two scenes where people dance to "Besame mucho". And watch how they use the alarm clock in the middle of the film.

Among other things, how Gosha and Rudolph/Rodion bond at the end is classic for Soviet cinema. And, we get to see remnants of the '50's and '70's that even we in the west can understand: as teenagers, the girls swoon over movie stars (and their socks looked kind of like bobby sox), and people wear colorful clothes in the '70's. A classic in every sense of the word.

Maybe,it sounds not convincing for a public far by period or East realities. but it is a real masterpiece. first, for its unique freshness. because it is more than an inspired love story but a precise and profound wise portrait of society. second...because it is so deep Russian. not only as area but as spirit, in tradition of great literature and cinematography. not the less - for performances. for small presence , in cameo role of Innokenti Smoktunovski, for Batalov and for the magnificent work of Vera Alentova. not the last, for the taste after its end. a sort of emotion who escapes to description. because it is like the air of morning at the first steps out of house.

This won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award and it has received a lot of very high plaudits here. I didn't like it quite as much as would justify all that enthusiasm -- but I did like it.

It's a sweet story, touchingly told, with very good acting from all involved. Because it's presented in two parts which, when combined, make for a fairly long movie, it has time not only to follow its characters but to develop themes -- prominent being that of the loneliness of people in the big city and the sometimes unwise things they do to relieve it.

Because of the wise scope it moves slowly, but that and the effective device of setting in two distant times allows for the payoff of some affecting moments in the second half.

While it's nominally a drama-comedy, it means more on the side of drama, and sometimes feels almost novelist in its wide scope. It was also interesting to see how it addressed various aspects of the social implications of the introduction of television and the social effects of income disparity in the two times. But overall personally I found myself more appreciative than enthusiastic.

This Oscar winning Russian film from 1979 begins the action in 1958, when we get to know three young women, who have come from the provinces to study in Moscow and are now living in a student's residence. While they are studying, they work in blue collar, factory jobs, but dream of escaping that life by marrying some powerful men. When a professor asks them to take care of his nice apartment while he's traveling, they see this as a perfect opportunity to impersonate women of higher status than they are and woo some eligible man into the apartment. One of the girls woos a famous athlete, another named Katya (who eventually becomes the center of the movie and is played by the beautiful Vera Alentova) gets involved with a cameraman in the then new medium of television. Eventually, Katya gets pregnant from the encounter with him, and when he realizes that she is a factory girl instead of a professor's daughter, decides to have nothing to do with her (he is in part afraid of the rejection of his snobbish mother, and the subtext of this, of course, is that the Soviet Union was far from a classless society). She thinks about aborting her baby, but eventually gives birth to a daughter and decides to raise her alone.

The movie then cuts to twenty years later. While her friends have married but remain trapped in a drab, working class life, Katya has remained single but has prospered professionally. She is now a director in a factory (a prestigious job in Soviet times) and lives in a nice apartment with her daughter, who is now a young woman. Despite her professional success, Katya is still looking for love, though she usually ends up in doomed affairs (for instance, when she gets involved with a married man). Eventually, she finds a promising prospect with Gosha, a masculine blue collar worker she finds on the train. But just when the relationship starts to develop, the long forgotten cameraman reappears in her life.

One of the interesting things of this movie is to get a glimpse of Soviet life at the late Brezhnev era, a time of relative prosperity… Sometimes the director goes for the easy reaction of the public, and modern audiences might not always approve of some of the cultural mores. But this is an interesting and entertaining film if somewhat overlong (two hours and a half).

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1979) is a stale, not so obvious propaganda film from the central committee, which was filled by backward, hypocritical, power hungry men who supported a tyranny and oligarchy. It's about as ridiculous as the gutter rubbish produced by Hollywood conglomerates. Punctuated by dull, sleep inducing scenes of Russians eating, drinking and discussing nothing in particular, it doesn't really go anywhere. The lives of a few Russian women are given selective treatments, from their work as slaves in the "glorious proletarian" factories, repeating menial tasks, to wanting to get laid. It's not intellectually stimulating, very tedious to behold and has no complicated storyline. People come and go without any loud drums or narrative.

What is so infantile is that the writers managed to cram nonsensical and inconsistent story lines just to fit the "required" amount of implantation of central committee doctrine, from mild scenes of elites eating well to the 'happy at the end love scene' that is entirely preposterous and incredulous to believe.

Moscow Does not Believe in Tears does not even function as passable entertainment because, frankly said, it's boring. There's not much attempt to examine the women's lives at all, it's just all so very convenient to present us with conflicts and their convenient denouements.

It is really hard to believe that Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1979) beat out Akira Kurosawa's brilliant and far superior Kagemusha (1980) for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. It's a bloody shame in fact.

And it will go into the history books as another egregious blunder from the ridiculous Oscar voting committee.

I've seen this movie many many times. But many times I've noticed some details in the plot which made me estimating again what is really happening there, and what were the writer's main idea in such a plot. The acting is also brilliant, and after seeing this movie several times, each another time makes me thinking again about my and our life, and also about the type of the gender relationships which concerns lies.

The story begins in the late 50's, and the first part concerns the lives of the characters at their early 20's. Then, the film jumps about 20 years forward, and the second part concerns the lives of the characters at their late 30's (or early 40's). The first time you see this movie, most of the interest is how did the lives changed over the 20 years, and what kind of an end the movie has. But it turns out that almost every scene and cite play an important role there, and after seeing it a few times I noticed that the movie is not just about the tales of the three girls and how does lives change.

For example, each of the parts is built by a pattern where the first half tells about the lives of the three girls, and the second half tells about Katya's (main character's) relationship with a boyfriend. In each of the parts the relationship isn't built in a pure way, since Katya must hide some facts about her (and even lie) to make sure everything will go on (I think this is the reason for making Gosha a macho man, and seeing it again you may find out what makes him behave like that). But in the two parts there are different kind of lies and relationships, and I think that makes the writer to put different endings at the parts. Although the first part has a sad end (what also reflects Katya's life further), in the second part the relationship doesn't break after Katya's boyfriend finds the truth about her.

Besides this example, there are many other topics about life which this film concerns. Seeing it enough times makes you sure that Gosha isn't as awful as he seems to be at the first time you see the movie (his past is barley mentioned, but when you find it out, it clears the scene where he meets Nikolay, and what will be afterwards), and therefore the ending may be concerned "good".

Again, this film may be watched again and again, in a very entertaining way, and each time telling you more about the plot. I think that such a film is a masterpiece.

Loved by both Russian and western audience alike,this film has often been regarded as entertaining romantic comedy and nothing more. Still,it,s a timeless story about love,friendship and the pursuit of happiness. It is the story of three girls who leave in 1957 their hometown somewhere in the remote Russian countryside for Moscow,to study and,above all,to find professional and personal fulfillment. One of them finds her happiness in marriage,another lives an ill-fated love story with famous hockey-player who eventually ends up as an alcoholic,but the most touching is the story of Katia,who,seduced and abandoned,pregnant and thrown out of university has the courage to raise her child all by her self,becoming,in twenty years,from a penniless unskilled laborer the manager of an important factory(the woman of career is almost an obsession of Soviet cinema,Katia being a sort of modern day Ninotchka). Nevertheless,in spite of her professional success,Katia is lacking,what almost every successful woman lacks:true love. As the film is a happy one,she finally meets a cultivated and good-looking worker(a propagandistic&proletarian bias)excellently acted by the brilliant and attractive Andrej Batalow,this man becoming more than simple infatuation to her,being devoted,caring and protective like a husband(even if they aren't married). All in all,the story is credibly optimistic,the actresses are extremely good-looking,the settings are elegant and the language witty and picturesque-in the Russian way,that is. Therefore,worth watching.