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Reviews
Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona: Sobaka Baskerviley (1981)
A Masterpiece of Sherlock Holmes screening
Once, a poll was conducted in England, and Vassily Livanov and Vitaliy Solomin were found the best ever impersonation of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the movies all over the world. Here, the brilliant couple delivers again. In addition, the winning plot and the magnificent guest performances of Nikita Michalkov as Sir Henry and of Oleg Yankovsky as Stapleton make this movie exceptional even amongst the Russian Sherlock Holmes series. A must!
Letyat zhuravli (1957)
Soviet Masterpiece
A true masterpiece of the Soviet cinematography. It's a shame for the Soviet Union that Samojlova was never given an opportunity to play in the Western movies -- but then again, she would probably never find herself there. In "Letyat Zhuravli", she is unforgettable. This was one of the few movies where I was crying...
In addition to Samojlova, Batalov and Merkurjev, who are top rate, it was a brilliant work of the director and the operator which made this movie an all-time classics world-wide. Just remember the scenes of piano music and proposal under the heavy German bombardment, or the death of Boris with a swirling sky above his head and his last visions appeared blurred in those skies. The very simple means -- but the great technique added to the emotional weight... Mind you, 20 years before "The Star Wars", 41 years before "Titanic", and with a Soviet budget.
Mesto vstrechi izmenit nelzya (1979)
True classics of the Soviet cinematography
True classics of the Soviet cinematography. Vyssotsky is brilliant, but so are Konkin, Belyavsky, Yursky, Pavlov and all the rest. A suspense, rare for the Soviet movies, is greatly mixed with philosophy. Govorukhin in his best directing effort, a true talent and professional unlike in politics.
Assa (1987)
Love triangle -- and still, Solovyov turns the lost plot into a winning one. Govorukhin and Drubich are first-rate.
When I think of this now, 12 years after I saw this movie for the first time, I can probably compare it somehow with "Fargo". The same gloomy colors, the same snow everywhere, the same slow motion of people dozing in winter like bears. The same sad realism in all the scenes, including the car chases, the same end. And also -- and this is the most amazing of it all, in my opinion -- the same feeling of light you experience at the end, despite the end which can hardly be called happy.
This film also has a winning mixture of criminal plot and love triangle. (Remember "Heat"?). A young girl is waiting for her lover in the snowy Yalta, and he comes one night too late because of the storm -- and in this one night she meets a young musician who offers her to spend the night in his apartment. (Mind you, this is a Soviet film -- there are no sex scenes at all in the movie, but the simplest gestures become erotic as they are real, as we all have been in those situations of late teens who just discover each other). Her lover is an underworld tycoon who manages to plan some more of his dark affairs, to mislead the KGB trail and to entertain the girl -- he saw for everything but the musician. Clever, rich, attractive, charming when needed (although extremely cruel when needed as well), brilliantly educated erudite -- he can do nothing against a young boy who has nothing but a pure heart and a love this heart can generate. And as usual in the love triangles, it does not end well for the involved sides -- for some lethally, for some with awful soul scars...
The movie is slow and viscous -- but this is its charm. The music of Grebenschikov (and the XVII-century piece of "Gorod Zolotoi", of course) became a real Russian classic; the historical jumps to the times of Paul I look like an original move of Sergei Solovyov and not like a ridiculous trial to look educated. The guest appearance of Victor Tsoi seems well-timed as well. And finally, Sergei Bugayev (the musician) has a winning role in itself, a martyr against his will -- but to play the parts of Alika and Krymov, it took all the talent of Tatyana Drubich and Stanislav Govorukhin, and they deliver the performances which will never be forgotten.
A good test of movies' quality is watching it again, 10-12 years after its release. I watched it recently, and it became worse -- the colors of the Soviet film faded, and the voices became muter. Technicalities. But as for the movie itself, I dreamt of it at night. This was an epochal movie for the 80-ies, but one that remains as a monument even in the XXI century.