Russian

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The great Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, whose Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, and Ivan the Terrible stand as masterpieces of world cinema, is the subject of this eccentric and puzzling production. Though based on memoirs Eisenstein wrote before his death in 1948, most of this film is barely a documentary at all, but rather a composite of images, many of which are fascinating and arresting. Eisenstein himself was known for startling and memorable images (perhaps the most famous of which is the shot of the baby carriage rolling down the steps in Potemkin), so memorializing him with clips from his own films interspersed with readings from his memoirs seems somewhat appropriate. But the voice-over in Russian (with English subtitles) is quite sparse, and at times the images onscreen, which include clips from Buster Keaton films and Hollywood musicals from the 1930s, are utterly mystifying.. –Robert J. McNamaraRead More »

Sergei works as a salesman in the department of unusual goods; his life differs in no way from that of a million other people — until night falls on to town.

FEST: Cannes, Moscow, Kinotavr, Molodist, …
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A man gets fired from his cooshie government job. He thinks its the end of the world but slowly finds things to live for. Nominated for Oscar in the foreign language movie category.Read More »

Description:The film is about friendship and incipient love between ten-form schoolchildren Ksenia and Boris. Rude and hypocritical interference of the people around, who saw platitide and even lechery in their feelings, spoilt their relationship, inflicted heavy spiritual trauma, destroyed their feeling, which could have grown into real big love.Read More »

A small village located on the shores of the White Sea, 2008. In Northern Russia.

While winter has shrouded everything in the glacial night of the North, a few hours of light per day seep in on the eve of Easter in the village of Soumskiy Pozad, around a thousand kilometers to the north of Saint-Petersburg, in the province of Karelia. Connected to the rest of the country by a vague muddy road and a piece of railroad, the village experiences a suspended and mysterious time. The film is about the Russia of unending forests and potato fields. A few robust and intransigent people live peacefully, in no hurry by pressing needs. Two small girls have just been adopted by a family. The woman is sweet and soft-spoken, whereas the man is hot-tempered. It is Chekov’s Russia: still happy, yet torn apart, and cold.
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The bridge film between his (Sokurov’s) first decade’s essays into historicized metafilm and the subsequent, fame-making fata morganas is Days of the Eclipse(1988), a patience-testing post-apocalyptic dawdle (based on a novel by the Strugatsky brothers) that plays more like aimless third-world doc than science fiction. Concerning a young doctor stuck in the middle of a rocky wasteland (actually, Turkmenistan, though it could easily pass for any post-colonial hunk of Africa), Daysis maddeningly oblique, visually erratic, and utterly disconnective. Angels, earthquakes, talking corpses, Stalinist iconography, and visual disjunctions may figure in, but for the most part Sokurov designed the film as an elusive tissue of non-happenings and mysterious nexuses, all of it sucking the dusty air of Soviet-satellite poverty.Read More »

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The film is based on Russian heroic legends and folklore. In a tall mansion, the beautiful Marya Morevna is waiting for her bridegroom, the mighty warrior Nikita Kozhemyaka. The longed-for meeting may happen any minute, but all of a sudden the Russian land is invaded by the armies of Kashchei the Immortal that bring destruction and death. Marya Morevna is abducted, and Nikita Kozhemyaka finds just ashes on the site of his home. But thanks to a kindly wizard who gave him a cap of darkness, the hero will find a way to rescue his bride and rout Kashchei.Read More »

From imdb:

The film is set in St. Petersburg, Russia after the Russian revolution of 1917. Based on the eponymous book by Boris Lavrenev. Maj. General Yevgeni Pavlovich Adamov (Popov) was a lawyer in the Tzar\’s Army and a professor of law at the Military Academy before the Russian Revolution. In the fall of 1918 he was arrested on false accusations and suffered the loss of all his property and honors. During the turbulent times of Revolution he managed to use all his experience and professionalism to prove his innocence. He was released from prison and all charges against him were dropped. He became a free man, but the reality is changed, and his adaptation to the post-revolutionary life was not easy. Written by Steve Shelokhonov

The film is based on a novel by Boris Lavrenev.Read More »

An ordinary hunter accidentally helps a criminal to escape from his accomplices. Two completely different men tries to reach a distant city, but the price of life will be truly terrifying.Read More »