Soviet Movies: Tatyana Lioznova - Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny aka Seventeen moments of spring (Episode 9) (1973)

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Tatyana Lioznova - Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny aka Seventeen moments of spring (Episode 9) (1973)

Stirlitz is a soviet spy who infiltrated in the Hitler’s headquarters from many years ago. Now, with the enemy at gates, in the days previous to the Berlin’s fall, in one country not prepared for the defeat, Stirlitz is confronted with his final task, discover a secret encounter in Switherland between the americans and a Himmler’s man to plan the destiny from a postwar new German, with Hitler dead, the soviet out, and the SS like principal actor after the shadows. In seventeen days that shock the world, Stirlitz, cornered, moves cautelously in a world of suspicion and fear, with the sounds of bombs day after day more and more closer, involved in a dangerous investigation about his person from one of his superior more closer everyday from discover his real identity.

Filmed in thrilling low-key, without any trace of efectism, “Seventeen moments of spring” is probably the best spy film from all the times (very close to the spirit of “The spy who came in from the cold”), the global performance from all cast, the use of documentary images and his link with the fiction, the exquisite write and serious treatment from nazy generals and german people (very unusual in a soviet film) makes from this series one of more fine jewels of european television’s golden age, 70 & 80 decades. Maybe not to the level of “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, “Dekalog”, “Scenes from a marriage” or “Heimat” because Lioznova not a great filmmaker to the Bergman, Fassbinder or Kieslowski stature, but this hit from iron curtain’s soviet television and luckily avalaible now in Occident, can be enjoyable not only for the lover of noir and spy film, but too for any film lover in general in search from a great story and intelligent characters.

This twelve-part television series about a Soviet intelligence agent who infiltrated the Nazi Secret Service has become a cult film. For the first time since Chapayev jokes and literary parodies are being made up about its main protagonist, Stirlitz. The era of perestroika has passed, the Soviet system of values has been shattered, with the USSR itself ceasing to exist, yet the film continues to be watched and enjoyed.The film owes its astounding success to director T. Lioznova’s many-year painstaking work, writer Y. Semyonov’s suspense-packed plot, the brilliant performance by the actors and M. Tariverdiyev’s music. More information about the real facts in Wikipedia.