CSULB
LIBRARY FEATURE FILMS from
RUSSIA
This list is organized
chronologically. Green
color refers to DVDs
titles; titles in Red are on VHS tapes and usually not recent.
ORTHODOX
/ IMPERIAL RUSSIA
[Before
1917]
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1917 REVOLUTION / CIVIL WAR
[1910-20s]
jump
STALIN'S USSR
[1930s]
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GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR / WWII
[1940s]
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POST-WWII USSR
LATE USSR /
PERESTROIKA
[1970-80s]
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POST-SOVIET
RUSSIA
[1990s-]
jump
GEOPOLITICS / NEWLY INDEPENDENT
STATES
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FILMS WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE - help
needed
jump
1917
REVOLUTION / Civil War (1910-1920s)
The rider named Death PN1997 .R893 2005
A small band of
radicals takes on a dangerous game of political
assassination as they attempt to bring down the Russian monarchy
through any means necessary. Based on terrorist Boris Savinkov's
autobiographical novel. Moscow of nearly a century ago is
"exquisitely recteated".
"Documentaries like A
fish factory in Astrakhan (1908) preceded the first Russian
dramatic production, Sten'ka Razin (Romashkov, 1908). Meanwhile, the
Moscow branch of Pathé produced its own version of the film d'art,
Princess Tarakanova (Hansen/Maître, 1910) and soon followed with the
first of many Chekhov adaptations, Romance with double bass (Hansen,
1911). 38 minutes"--Notes from publisher.
Mat' = The mother
PN1995.75
.M37 1970
Relates the
injustices caused by the Tsarist regime and which lead to
the mother's conversion to Communism during the 1905 revolution.
October 1917 / direction,
Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori V. Alexandrov. PN1997 .O3 1990
Silent film by the Russian master, Sergei M. Eisenstein, detailing the events
leading
up to the Russian Revolution. The original version was heavily censored by
Stalin, but in 1967 a full restoration was made, and a music score by
Shostakovich
and sound effects track were added.
Stachka = Strike (1925) / directed
by Sergei Eisenstein
PN1995.75 .S774 1999
Story of a strike by factory workers in
Tsarist Russia which is brutally suppressed.
The Red and
the white / directed
by Miklуs Jancsу
PN1997 .R355 1990
Komissar = The commissar (1988)
/directed
by A. Askoldov
PN1997
.C74636 PN1997 .C74623 2007
The female commissar
of a Russian town taken over by the Red Army
becomes pregnant and is forced by her superiors to stay with a poor
Jewish family until she gives birth.
Beloe solntse pustyni = White sun of the desert / directed by Motyl' PN1997 .W53413 2003
[This is one of the most popular Soviet films, a tragicomedy. The end of the Civil War, Central Asia.] A recently discharged soldier makes his way across the desert, seeking only to get to his native village. He happens to be in the area usually occupied by a bandit and his gang. The bandit has left, abandoning all the women connected with the gang, and it falls to the soldier to help them get to safety. Special features: Interviews with the screenwriters ; "Basmachi": archival footage of conflicts such as the one the feature is about.
Potomok
Chingis-Khana = Storm over
Revolutionary drama centered
on a young Mongol thought to be descended from Genghis Khan whom
imperialists seek to use to further
their expansionist interests. After
a series of misadventures the young ls and leads his
people against
their
oppressors. Central Asia
Raba l︠i︡ubvi =
Slave of love PN1997 .R122 2006
Set in the Soviet
Union in 1922, a school for orphan boys, one of the
Dostoevsky Schools of Individual Study, has some discipline problems,
that ultimately lead to a revolt by the students. The boys then set up
their own "republic" and try governing themselves.
Bed and sofa
PN1995.75
.B432 1995
Satirical film which points up the social consequences of the Soviet housing shortage. A husband and wife invite a friend to live with them and sleep on the sofa, but soon the husband winds up on the sofa. A landmark film because of humor, naturalism, and its sympathetic portrayal of the woman.
My iz Dzhaza = Jazzman PN1997
.J38 1984
When jazz is condemned at his music school as a product of a bourgeois society, a young man forms a street jazz band and finds some benefactors to help the band gain recognition in the Soviet Union of the 1920s.
Siberiada = Siberiade by Andrei Konchalovsky PN1997
.S5673 1994
An epic romantic
drama about three generations of two feuding families,
the rich Solomins and the poor Ustyuzhanins, of a Siberian
village, from the time of the Russian Revolution to the
present-day
exploration of hidden resources of Siberian soil.
The film depicts the destinies of the Don Cossacks during the First World War and the Civil War in Russia. Based on Nobel Prize winning novel by Mikhail Sholokhov. 4 DVD disks
Aėlita
PN1995.75 .A345 2004
Veselye rebiata = The world is laughing (1934) / directed
by G.V. Aleksandrov PN1997
.J526 1996
A
musical comedy which pits a whip-cracking,
animal-herding,
good-hearted rustic with a fine voice and a Pan-like effect on all who
hear
him against a so-called "finer" stratum of society. Leaving a trail of
mirth
and mayhem from the seaside to the
TSirk = Circus (1936) PN1997 .C498 1996
Alexandrov's attempt at importing American musical comedy into Soviet film. An American circus star who has a black baby can only find happiness with the Soviet people in the Soviet Union.
Wolga, Wolga = Volga, Volga
(1937/38) PN1997
.V6585 1996
Love story in
which the boy and girl quarrel over whether his classical
music performance or her folk music performance will win the Moscow
amateur talent show
The
post-Soviet
Utomlennye
Solntsem = Burnt by the sun (1994) / directed by Nikita Mikhalkov PN1997
.B827 1995
Russian filmmaker
Nikita Mikhalkov is also the star of this
tragic 1994 drama
about the last happy season in the life of a Bolshevik hero's family.
The
year is 1936, and Stalin's purges are in full swing. Despite his
reputation
and revolutionary record, Sergei Kotov (Mikhalkov)
seems
to be on the dictator's hit list, as indicated by the insulting arrival
of
his wife's former lover, an agent of government police. Mikhalkov treats all this as a matter of
personal
and political intrigue dropping like rotting fruit in the middle of a
sunny
and loving period for the Kotov clan. The
director
ingeniously understates the mounting threat until one begins to realize
that
the Kotovs are only geographically distant
from
the long, bloody reach of Stalin. By the time we do realize it, the
shock
of change is almost unbearable. A very fine movie all around, though Mikhalkov's touches of magic realism
(particularly
the presence of a golden orb that keeps popping into the action) are
distracting and a subject of controversy among viewers. (amazon.com)
Zemlia
=
Earth;
Bezhin
Lug =
Bezhin
meadow
(1930/1937) directed
by Sergei Eisenstein
PN1997
.E177 2001
Earth: A Ukranian
landowner is
forced to give up his holdings to the
state. Vasili obtains a tractor and under his leadership the collective
is successful. He is shot by the landowner's son. Vasil's father asks
that he have a "modern" funeral with songs by the young people of their
new life. Bezhin meadow:
Eisenstein's film was banned in Russia
in 1937, and
subsequently all prints were destroyed. This print is a reconstruction
by Sergei Yutkevich from old stills and sketches. It was to have been
about the young pioneers and their contribution to Soviet collective
farming, but became instead the story of the struggle between old and
new forces in Russia as symbolized in the story of a young boy who
opposes his evil father. Earth,
originally released as a motion picture in 1930. Bezhin meadow
is a partial reconstruction from episodes originally filmed in
1935-1937.
Zerkalo = The Mirror (1974) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky PN1997 .M586 2000
Tarkovsky's looking
glass is not merely cracked but shattered and we
see the jagged, jumbled reflections of its shards, imges of Tarkovsky's
childhood mixed with fragments of his adult life--a child's wartime
exile, a mother's experience with political terror, the breakup of a
marriage, life in a country home--all intermingled with slow-motion
dream sequences and poetic chunks of stark newsreels.
Repentance = Pokayaniye/ directed
by Tengiz Abulaze PN1997 .M4577 1988
Poka︠i︡anie =
Repentance PN1997 .P6468 2003
In
a small Russian village a woman is put on
trial for repeatedly digging up the body of the town's recently
deceased ruler.
The trial gradually reveals the truth about the despot's vicious reign
of
terror, and forces the townspeople to face the reality of his (and the
GREAT PATRIOTIC
WAR / WWII (1940s)
Osvobozhdenie
= Liberation
(1968-1971) directed
by Yuri Ozerov
PN1997
.O7164 2004
War, Drama,
Color,
445 min; Format: Full screen,
4:3; Russian film director Yuri Ozerov's most
famous work was the
five-part WWII epic Osvobozhdeniye
(The Liberation) that was hugely
popular in his native country -- each of the first two parts was seen
by 56 million people. Osvobozhdeniye,
his biggest success,
was notable not only for its impressive battle scenes but also for its
attempt to show the war from the perspective of ordinary Russian
soldiers.The
production is reportedly "the most expensive film endeavor in the
history of the Soviet Union," with "fortunes spent on reconstructing
the
Fall of Berlin, featuring the most impressive war scenes on
film." Whether
this assertion is true or not, the blend of rare archival footage and
original shots are unique and unforgettable. No
subtitles. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151852/
Voskhozhdenie = The Ascent (1976) directed by Larisa Shepit'ko PN1997 .A7597 2008 PN1997 .V876 1997
Larisa Shepit'ko's masterpiece is taken from Vasil Bykau's story "Sotnikov" and set in German- occupied Belorussia in 1942. This story of the tragic fate of a group of partisans is replete with spiritual strength and religious symbolism. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1977. Shepit'ko was wife of another filmmaker, Elem Klimov (Come and See). No subtitles. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075404/A zori zdes tikhie = The dawns
here are quiet PN1997
.D3215 2004
This dramatic story
of women in the war has won numerous international
prizes and awards. The action takes place during the Great Patriotic
War (1941-1945). Russian
Karelia, the autumn of 1941.
Five anti-aircraft gunner girls, who are
mostly under twenty years old, and their commander, Sergeant Vaskov,
discover that a German subversive detachment has landed in this, still
far-removed from the front line, locale. The information must be
delivered to the headquarters. However, the saboteurs have broken
communications, cutting off the small group from their own people and
leaving them no hope of getting any help. The enemy endeavors to
further penetrate into the rear of the Soviet army on a mission to
destroy a number of essential facilities. Vaskov and the five girls
accept battle, being outnumbered by sixteen Fascists, armed to the
teeth.
Kukushka =
The Cuckoo (Russia 2002) / directed
by Rogozhkin PN1997
.M46 1989
Proverka na dorogakh = Checking on the
roads directed by Alexei German PN1997
.C2218 2002
Film is set in the
winter of 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Russia
in WWII. Partisan guerrillas, headed by Ivan Lokotkov (Bykov), are
testing the POW Lazarev, who briefly collaborated with the Nazis for
survival. Lazarev is not executed, but instead he is given a chance to
prove his loyalty. He has to go back to the Nazi controlled railway
station, where everyone knows him, and to hijack a train with food
supplies. Lazarev (Zamansky) proves himself a hero.
An
orphan boy serves the Russian army by
reconnoitering behind enemy lines during World War II.
An evocative, poetic journey through the shadows and shards of a boy's
war-torn youth. 12-year old Ivan works as a spy at the World War II
eastern front. The small Ivan can cross the German lines unnoticed to
collect information. Three Soviet officers try to take care of this
boy-child.
Idi i smotri = Come and see
= Viens et vois / directed
by Elem Klimov
PN1997 .C7456 2001
The
horrific and harrowing experiences of a
young
boy coming of age during the brutal German occupation of
Ballada o soldate = Ballad
of a soldier / directed
by Grigori Chukhrai
PN1997
.B2454 2000 also on VHS tape PN1997 .B34 1980
A
young soldier refuses a medal following a
heroic action and instead takes leave from the front to visit his
mother. During
his travels by train, truck, and on foot, he meets many people: a
crippled
veteran, a comic sentry, faithful and faithless wives, and a girl with
whom
he falls in love.
Letiat
Zhuravli = The cranes are flying / directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
PN1997
.C842 2002
Mikhail Kalatozov's luscious portrait of love and loss
during
World War II stars almond-eyed beauty Tatyana
Samojlova and handsome Aleksei
Batalov as moony-eyed young lovers whose
innocent
romance is shattered by war. When the idealistic boy volunteers for
service,
his draft-dodging cousin steals the despondent girl by brute force, yet
she
never gives up on her true love, even when he's reported dead. Kalatozov's patriotic paean to fallen soldiers
and
home-front heroes is an undeniably sentimental melodrama suffused with
lush
images and lyrical sequences, a kind of cinematic poetry unseen in
Soviet
cinema since the experimentation and optimism of the silent days. Produced during the "thaw" following Stalin's repressive
reign,
it won the Palme d'Or
prize at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival and set Kalatozov
on the road to more ambitious expressions of Soviet idealism in the
modern
world.
Comment: Gone by the wind of WWII.
Detskii
Sad = Kindergarten / written
and directed by poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko PN1997 .K432 1984
"...s
sprawling, semi-autobiographical
film which follows the adventures of a young boy cast adrift in
Vor = The thief / directed by Pavel Chukhrai PN1997 .T42815 1999
An
Academy Award nominated (Best Foreign
Language Film, 1997) tale of passion, betrayal and innocence lost, as
seen through
the eyes of an impressionable young boy. Set in post-World War II Russia.
Video Cassette 10008
Podranki = The Orphans PN1997 .O6683 1983
A successful novelist
revisits the scenes of his childhood, where he
and his two brothers were homeless orphans surviving by their wits amid
the chaos of World War II. Now finding his brothers cool and
indifferent, he wonders if the warmth and care of their early years
together did not make them the best years of his life.
Svolochi
PN1997
.S9315 2006
The year is 1943. Polkovnik Vishnevskiy (Andrei Panin) receives an
order from the government to train a group of diverse soldiers to stop
the actions of a German army group called "Eidelveis". The mission is a
top-secret one. Vishnevskiy trains young (14-15 year old) boys from
juveniles. They all know that after the mission is finished they all
will be eliminated since they all know to much to be left alive. This
is, alas, another post-Soviet commercial project to imitate the western
pop-culture products: the story is invented and misrepresents the
Soviets.
Karnavalnaia noch = Carnival
night PN1997
.C287 2003
This Russian musical manages to satirize Soviet life without ever offending the Politburo. The story concerns a group of young stage performers who, in true Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland fashion, wanna put on a swell show. Trouble is, the hidebound Ministry of Culture expects the kids to do a propaganda piece. Undaunted, our heroes and heroines stage the show their way, finding fun and romance along the way.
Russkoe = Russian
(Russia 2005) PN1997
.R9 2005
The film is based on five novels about [famous writer Eduard] Limonov's
adolescence in
late-1950s Kharkov, taking most
of its material from "Memoir of a
Russian
Punk" (Podrostok Savenko). Andrei Chadov gives a charismatic
performance as the film's hero, Edichka, moving from preoccupation with
everyday teenage concerns to a darker second half dominated by his
incarceration in a lunatic asylum.
Katok i Skripka =
The Steamroller and the Violin / directed
by Andrei Tarkovsky PN1997
.S682 2002
At the center of the film is the unlikely friendship between Sasha, a young boy who loves to play the violin, and Sergey, the macho driver of a steamroller. The film sidesteps sentimentality to give us a warm yet ironic look at two individuals who bridge differences in generations to form a powerful bond.
Moskva Slezam
Ne Verit =
The
setting is
Comment: Academy Award, Best Foreign
Film.
Krylʹ︠i︡a =
Wings / dir. Larissa Shepit'ko PN1997 .W5535 2008
Following an injury, Nadya's decorated
service as a pilot ended, as did her romance to another pilot, Mitya,
who did not make it out of battle. Two decades later, Nadya now lives
an ordinary life as the headmistress of a high school. It's not a
satisfying occupation for her. Released in 1966, this a feminist movie
of profound beauty, moving effortlessly from cramped, rundown interiors
to wide open public spaces and somehow making its protagonist look
small in either of them.
LATE USSR / PERESTROIKA
(1970-80s)
Stalker directed
by Andrei Tarkovsky PN1997
.S657475 1993 v.1-2
Ivan Vasilevich meniaet
professiiu = Ivan Vasilievich changes
career directed
by Leonid Gaidai (1973)
PN1997
.I83 2001
Shurik Timofeev builds a working model of a time machine. By accident,
Ivan Bunsha, an apartment complex manager, and George Miloslavsky, a
petty burglar, are transferred to the 16th century Moscow, while Tsar
Ivan the Terrible goes into the year 1973.
Ironiia sudby, ili, S lëgkim parom! = Irony of fate, or enjoy your bath directed by Eldar Ryazanov PN1997 .I5772 2001
A group of old
friends have a tradition of going to a public bathing
house on New Years eve. Unfortunately too much vodka and beer makes two
of them unconscious. The problem is that one of them has to go to
Leningrad and one of them goes... but its the wrong one. Zhenya wakes
up at Leningrad airport. Believing that he is still in Moscow he takes
a taxi and goes home. The street name, apartment number, the way an
apartment complex looks and even the key coincide completely - just
typical Soviet-type 'economy' architecture. Imagine the surprise of
Nadya when she enters her apartment and finds a man without trousers in
her bed. What's more - Nadya's fiance also finds him there... Moscow, Leningrad
Osennii
marafon =
Autumn marathon directed
by Danelia PN1997
.A887 2000
Sto dnei do prikaza = 100 days before the command PN1997 .O535 2000
Five young Red Army recruits struggle for survival against the violence that surrounds them on a daily basis.
Sto dnei posle detstva = One hundred days after childhood directed by Sergei Solov'ev (O liubvi) PN1997 .A2685 2004
Portrays the story of
the main character, whose life includes infidelity, desertion,
loneliness, and a tragic suicide.
Note: Only in Russian: no subtitles or
multilingual support.
Garazh = Garage directed by Eldar Ryazanov PN1997 .G287 2004
The characters of
this movie are all waiting for their garages to be
built. Suddenly, on one of the meetings, they learn that 4 of them will
not get their garages. And since some of them have powerful "hands"
that support them, the government of this "Garazh kooperativ" (Garage
Club) decided to expell those that don't have those "hands". One of the
members, Malaeva, who was unhappy with that, locked them in their
conference room, where they had to spend the whole night in discussions.
Note: Only in Russian: no subtitles or
multilingual support.
Sluzhebnyi roman = Office
romance directed
by Eldar Ryazanov PN1997
.O334 2003
Anatoli Yefremovich Novoseltsev works in a statistics institution, whose director is an unattractive and bossy woman. An old friend of his, Yuri Grigorievich Samokhvalov, who gets appointed assistant director of the institution, wants to make Novoseltsev the head of the department but encounters objections from Ludmila Prokopievna Kalugina, the director. Samokhvalov then advises Novoseltsev to lightly hit on the boss. Ironically, Novoseltsev and Kalugina fall in love with each other.
Note: Only in Russian: no subtitles or
multilingual support.
Nevero︠i︡atnye
prikl︠i︡ucheni︠i︡a italʹ︠i︡an︠t︡sev v Rossii= Unbelievable
Adventures of Italians in Russia PN1997
.N376 2006
Treasure hunters from Rome go to Russia on a search for hidden treasure
and experience a series of wild and humorous adventures. Comedy typical of the late Soviet time: time
machine allows travel to Muscovy Russia and back...
Brilliantova︠i︡a
ruka = Diamond arm PN1997 .B74517 2005
An eccentric comedy about a modest Russian worker who starts a heroic
combat against a gang of smugglers. Comedy
Obyknovennoe
chudo = An ordinary miracle PN1997.O259 2006
The film is after Evgeniy Shvarts' fairytale play, full of stories and
miracles experienced by the heroes and told us. The main theme is that
the miracle of love is able to destroy any sorcery. A popular
late
Soviet film.
Mimino PN1997
.M5654 2004
Korolʹ
Lir
Interdevochka = Intergirl PN1997 .I5125 2005
The adventures of a
Leningrad call girl - a
hospital nurse who becomes
an "international girl", a prostitute who caters to foreigners with
hard currency, who marries a client from Sweden and goes straight.
Note: Only in Russian: no subtitles or
multilingual support.
Legko li byt molodym? = Is it easy
to be young? / directed
by Yuris Podnieks HQ799.L3 I8 1988
Alienated youth in the [late]
Comment: This is
a documentary film; it was a big sensation at the time
of
perestroika.
Little Vera
= Malen’kaia Vera/ directed
by Vasily Pichul PN1997 .L5778 1989
The
controversial, award winning Russian
movie
about a woman torn between her lover and her bitter parents.
Comment: A popular
perestroika time
film signaling the end of the Soviet system.
Chuchelo = Scarecrow
PN1997
.S296 1988
Life through the eyes
of Russian young teens.
Brigada is a group of four friends, who grew up together and formed a powerful gang in Moscow. Initially they did business together, but an unplanned murder transformed them into a gang. Now their lives are at risk and there is no way back. The gang leader Sasha Bely (Besrukov) ends up pursuing a political career as a representative in the Russian Parliament - the Duma. His opponent in the election campaign is The Detective (Panin), who was watching the gang for 12 years.
Comment: This is the
most popular post-Soviet TV serial, a kind of encyclopedia of the last
10 years.
Magnitnye buri = Magnetic storms
PN1997
.M25445 2003
Life in a factory town in contemporary provincial Russia is depicted. Strikes and unrest at the factory combine with a romantic triangle in the hero's private life.
Okraina = The outskirts
PN1997.O917
2003
A group of men fight
injustice as they try to discover who stole their
land. Their hunt for the offenders takes them from the gentle
countryside to the halls of power.
A.n.a.t.o.m.i.ia. t.A.T.u. = Anatomy of t.A.T.u. (2004)
[documentary film] ML421.T38
M36 2004
A frank, behind-the-scenes look at the Russian girl duo t.A.T.u. during 2003 as they begin a U.S. tour and later compete in the Eurovision music contest.
Progulka = The
Stroll PN1997
.S7858 2003
Watch the exploits of three young romantics as they dance around St. Petersburg, Russia, getting themselves involved in everything from a soccer riot to a rainstorm to a fight between best friends. Set in mostly real time, Olya, Alyosha and Petya act as if the world is their due and they live to enjoy every moment of it.
Comment: You
literally stroll through St.Petersburg, even a map is provided. A
useful urban film.
Thirty five-year-old Lilia is a naive resident of a Russian provincial city. She lives with her old father and works in a chicken slaughterhouse. Despite her disarming charm she lacks a man in her life. Her attempts to form relationships always lead to nowhere. One day, a well-known pianist gives a concert in the city. Lilia is enchanted by him, and she will tie herself in knots trying to conquer the man.
Starukhi = Old women directed by Sidorov PN1997 .O375 2003
In a small Russian
town,
the only inhabitants of which are a group of elderly women, the only
male presence is when the soldiers visit their grandmothers. The only
male who lives with them is a young lad with Down's syndrome. The
monotony is broken when a family of refugees arrive, who are not given
a warm welcome.
A young miner, long
out of work and money, has spent years suffering
from his unrequited love for a beautiful young woman. After spending
several years in Moscow, the woman returns even more unattainable. Yet
she herself proposes marriage to the startled miner. A small provincial town south of Moscow
Osobennosti natsionalnoi rybalki = Peculiarities of Russian national fishing (1998) PN1997 .P3962 2000
General Ivolgin,
forester Kuzmich, and good-natured Lyova lose their
way on a fishing trip and wind up in Finland, where they decide to have
a good time anyway but end up leaving their vodka and fishing equipment
behind. North European Russia, Karelia
Brat = Brother PN1997
.B7587 2000
Soon after being
discharged from the Army, Danila runs afoul of the
authorities. He goes to live with his brother, a gangster, in the
free-wheeling city of Leningrad.
Soon Danila is immersed in the city's
organized crime scene. Comment: A very popular film.
Maria is a young successful scientist. Working on the creation of a new medication, she's very close to a major scientific breakthrough. However, on one ordinary winter day, her life is drastically changed. Maria's husband has disappeared without a trace. Unable to find rest either at home or at the laboratory, the young woman drives around Moscow trying to find out what happened to her missing spouse. In the mean time, a series of brutal murders of young good-looking women take place in the city. Several days later, Maria realizes that her own life might just melt down like a snowflake.
Nebo, samolet, devushka = Sky, airplane, girl directed by Renata Litvinova PN1997 .S5998 2003
A stewardess meets a
man in an airport bar and they have an affair.
This love story starts in a posh bar at an airport and evolves through
chilly hotel rooms, barren lands, under cloudy skies so as to depict
the inner feelings of Lara and Georgi. The director has a distinctive
Russian
style, in the tradition of great directors like Tarkovsky, with its
simple, almost functionalist settings, theatrical acting, silences, and
the observation of nature as a futurist filmmaker would have done in
the '20s. On the other hand, contemporary Russia is very present.
Uvlechenia directed
by Kira Muratova PN1997
.P37385 2000
Tells the story of a blonde, Lilia, and a brunette, Violetta, and their fascination with horses. Their interest extends to the men who ride the horses, and the feeling turns out to be more than mutual, as our two heroines set off on a series of torrid encounters. People with a passion for horses are observed in this Russian film by filmmaker Kira Muratova. The film has no real plot. Instead it zeros in on several scenes in which people talk about or hang out around horses. In the first segment, set on the lawn of a seaside hospital, an healing, wheelchair bound jockey, a nurse and an eccentric circus performer, Viola, discuss the difference between racehorses and circus horses. Another scene is set at a racetrack where gunshots are heard in the background. Fashion models are doing a layout amongst the horses.
Nastroishchik
= The tuner directed
by Kira Muratova PN1997
.N3325 2005
A former nurse, Liuba (Nina Ruslanova), seeking marriage through newspaper personal ads, is bilked by a stranger whom she mistakes for her new date. Liuba's elderly, well-to-do girlfriend, Anna Sergeevna (Alla Demidova) is defrauded in a different fashion: having placed a newspaper ad for a piano tuner, she is entrapped by Andrei (Georgii Deliev), who is not only an excellent tuner and musician, but also a reasonably good petty thief and scam artist. Andrei and his current lover, Lina (Renata Litvinova), attempting to further secure the women's trust by returning Liubas money, which had been scammed yet again by a second potential husband cum con-artist, place their own fake personal ad in a newspaper so as to locate the suspect. Having returned Liuba's stolen money, Andrei finally swindles both Liuba and Anna Sergeevna through an elaborate bank forgery scheme-in a word, a portrait of normal human nature a la Muratova.
Tri istorii = Three Stories directed
by Kira Muratova
PN1997
.T69 2003
A man goes to see his
former schoolmate working at a boiler house and
persuades him to burn in the furnace the corpse of his communal flat
neighbor whom he has just murdered after a quarrel. An orphaned girl
gets a job in the archives of the maternity home to find out the
identity of her mother who abandoned her years earlier. She finds her,
befriends her and takes the first opportunity to throw her into the
sea. An old intellectual tries to explain to the neighbor's
five-year-old daughter "all the abomination of her lumpen existence".
The girl feeling hurt for her mother decides to poison the old man with
arsenic.
Mat i syn = Mother and son = Mutter und Sohn
directed
by Alexandr Sokurov
PN1997
.M78412 2000
Set against one
stunning landscape after another, this is the tale of a
son, his dying mother, and the enormous loss that impends as their
ultimate separation approaches.
Otets i syn = Father and son
directed
by Alexandr Sokurov
PN1997
.F4986 2004
A father and son live
together in a rooftop apartment. They have lived alone for years in
their own private world. Sometimes they seem like brothers, at other
times they appear to be like lovers. Following in his father's
footsteps, the son, Alexei
attends military school. He likes sports and has problems with his
girlfriend. She is jealous of Alexei's relationship with his father.
Alexei's father knows he should maybe accept a better job in another
city, maybe search for a new wife. But who will ease the pain of
Alexei's nightmares?
Vozvrashcheniye = The Return (2004)
Professor
Schefski, H.
Within the emotional
vacuum of a fatherless childhood, young brothers
Andrei (Vladimir Garin) and Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) have grown closer
than most siblings. But when they least expect it, the father the boys
have never known returns. Under the cool midnight sun of a coastal
Russian
summer, Andrei and Ivan eagerly hop into a car for a week long fishing
trip with a complete stranger they desperately need to believe is their
father. But as they travel deeper into the Russian
wilderness, their journey devolves from vacation to boot camp to
father-sons love triangle and ultimately to a test of wills that pushes
to the brink of violence. As it dawns on the boys that the man who
could be their father might be trying to abandon, exploit, or kill
them. The Return's Jungian landscape gives way to fervid Freudian rage,
shocking loss and bittersweet redemption.
Vovochka
Professor
Schefski, H.
A Russian television
mini-series centering around Vovochka, a
ten-year-old boy, an ever-inventive daredevil, who happens to be quite
a handful for the grown-ups around him. With Vovochka's arrival at his
country place on the eve of the New Year holidays, the life of that
quiet suburban Moscow village
blows up, both literally and figuratively.
Oligarkh = Un nouveau russe = Tycoon PN1997 .T933 2004
During the Gorbachev
years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are
university students who jump on the private capitalism movement.
Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia,
having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical
rise, comes a brutal fall.
Koktebel'
PN1997
.K6972 2003
"A broke and recovering alcoholic travels from Moscow to Crimea's Koktebel
with
his eleven-year old son. Their journey through the Russian heartland
brings them into contact with a number of "local characters," each of
whom assists or hinders the journey. The goal of their journey, to
start a new life, is one that has a long tradition in Russian culture
and cinema, though its trajectory is traditionally reversed: characters
move from the periphery (the countryside, the past) to the center (the
capital, the future)"--The Kinokultura film review website.
GEOPOLITICS
/ NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES
Dom dlia
Durakov = House of
Fools
(Russia
2002)
Professor
Schefski, H.
Shiza = Schizo PN1997
.S314 2005
This beautiful and moving feature, set in modern-day Kazakhstan, depicts the hard choices a young man makes when he's caught between poverty, crime and love, guided only by his wits and his better nature.
Since Otar left = Depuis qu'Otar est parti PN1997
.S5965 2004
A family portrait of
three generations of Georgian women in the city of Tbilisi. Eka
obsesses over her physician son Otar, while the other two attempt to
deal as best they can with Eka's burning desire to see him. A poignant,
bittersweet story.
Kavkazskii
plennik = Prisoner
of the mountains
/
by Sergei Bodrov
PN1997
.P7358 2000
Summary A Russian army patrol is ambushed by
Caucasian
rebels and two survivors are taken prisoner, by a local patriarch who
is
hoping to barter them for the release of his captured son. A bond of
understanding develops between the soldiers and their captors, but it
is broken when plans for their release go awry and a chain of violence
and retaliation is precipitated.
Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa =
Legenda
o Suramskoy
Kreposti = The Legend of Suram
fortress by Sergei Paradzhanov PN1997
.L387 2001
The Georgians' repeated efforts at building a fortress against invaders fail until a fortune teller remembers an old prophecy that the son of her erstwhile lover must be bricked up alive in order for the fortress to stand. The young man sacrifices himself to save his country.
K‘art‘uli P‘ilmi = Ashik Kerib : the lovelorn minstrel by Sergei Paradzhanov PN1997 .L387 2001
Tale of a lovelorn musician, his travels and travails, and the eventual restoration of his mother's eyesight as well as his winning the hand of his intended. Done in a highly stylized, theatrical fashion.
Nran guyne = Tsvet granata = The color
of pomegranates PN1997
.C738 2001 by Sergei Paradzhanov
Stylized biography of noted eighteenth century Armenian poet and
troubadour Sayat Nova, based on his writings. It depicts the poet's
life in eight sections, from childhood to death, rich with symbols of
sacred and secular Armenian life.
The videodisc also includes the documentary Paradjanov: a requiem (57 min.), directed by Ron Holloway, and Hagop hovnatanian (10 min.) an early short film directed by Paradjanov.
Neskorenii = The Undefeated PN1997
.U4495 2001
The
term "The Russian
Idea" is used to describe a
desire for revolution, to create a utopia. In this film director Sergei
Selyanov attempts to prove that 'our national films' that have become
part of
the world culture are connected with 'The Russian Idea' in one way or
the
other, using clips from the films of Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Vertov.
53 min.
Voyna = The
War (Russia
2002) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309047/
Molitva za
getmana Mazepu = A
Prayer for Hetman Mazepa (
Occupatsia.
Misterii = Misterium Occupations
(
Putevoditel'
= The Guidebook (Ukraine
2005) http://www.fdk-berlin.de/forum/en/program/filme/putevoditel/