Monday, June 2, 2014

Vladimir Motyl - Beloe solntse pustyni AKA White Sun of the Desert (1970)





One of classics of the Soviet cinema and the most popular film of the Soviet era.

A soldier of the Red Army named Sukhov has been fighting in the Russian Civil War in Russian Asia for many years. Just as he is about to return home to his wife, Sukhov is chosen to guard and protect the harem of a guerilla leader (Abdulla). Abdulla is wanted by the Red Army and left his harem behind because the women hindered him. Sukhov's task proves to be more difficult than he imagined...

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Vladimir Potapov - Posrednik AKA The Mediator (1990)





Quote:
Morning of a silent provincial small town. The sleepy city is exposed silent to capture alien a landing. Newcomers are installed in people, destroying the person and subordinating a body to the new carrier. It is last fantastic film made in the USSR. 1990 - last year before disintegration of the Union.

Nikita Mikhalkov – Utomlyonnye solntsem 2 aka Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010)



29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

Plot:

Epic film about WWII, a sequel to Burnt by the Sun (1994). Evil Stalin is terrorizing people of Russia while the Nazis are advancing. Russian officer Kotov, who miraculously survived the death sentence in Stalin's Purge, is now fighting in the front lines. His daughter, Nadia, who survived a rape attempt by Nazi soldiers, is now a nurse risking her own life to save others. In the war-torn nation even former enemies are fighting together to defend their land. People stand up united for the sake of victory. The deadly war comes at very high cost: the Nazis are killing people, burning villages, raping women, bombing churches, destroying bridges. Hoping to survive, Kotov and his daughter are having visions of each other, but their dreams fade amidst massive bombardment. Fire and smoke eclipses the sun. The land around becomes lifeless, defenseless and littered with the dead. Then the dead are covered by snow. Life is over. Only a butterfly is flying above the weapons and corpses, alluding to eternity.

Sergei Bodrov - S.E.R. - Svoboda eto rai AKA Freedom is Paradise (1989)





SYNOPSIS:

13-year-old Sasha finds himself the unwilling resident of a grim reform school after the death of his mother. He sets off on a 1,000 mile odyssey to a gulag-style high security prison, seeking the father he has never met.

Quote:
Before Bodrov became „big business“ he made quite a few CHERNUKHA-movies about the dark side of the Soviet union. This is the internationally best known!
Winner of the Grand Prix des Ameriques at the Montreal International Film Festival and the "Wolfgang Staudte Award" at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The first Russian movie to actually film inside Russian prisons and reformatories. Also the first Film of Sergej Bodrov jr. He appeared on screen only for a few minutes, playing a minor lawbreaker waiting for a decision concerning his destiny.

Yakov Segel - Inoplanetyanka AKA Extraterrestrial Girl (1984)



29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

Extraterrestrial Girl visited Earth.
Inventor Blinkov in love with her. His love is awakened in her new emotions and feelings.
She realized that Blinkov can not live in a different world.
And she leaves the Earth with sadness and loneliness.

Mikhail Karzhukov & Aleksandr Kosyr - Nebo zovyot AKA The Sky Calls (1959)





Quote:
A Soviet scientific expedition is being prepared as the world's first mission to planet Mars. Their space ship Homeland has been built at a space station, where the expedition awaits the command to start. An American ship Typhoon experiencing mechanical problems arrives at the same space station, secretly having the same plans for the conquest of the Red Planet. Trying to stay ahead of Soviets, they start without proper preparation, and soon are again in distress. The Homeland changes course to save the crew of Typhoon. They succeed, but find that their fuel reserves are now insufficient to get to Mars. So Homeland makes an emergency landing on an asteroid "Icarus" passing near Mars, on which they are stranded. After an attempt to send a fuel supply by unmanned rocket fails, another ship Meteor is sent with a cosmonaut on a possibly suicidal mission, to save the stranded cosmonauts.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Nikoloz Sanishvili – Chermeni AKA Chermen (1970)





The film’s main hero is Chermen. An illegitimate son, Chermen is striving to assert his dignity. He is opposed by Dacco, the elder of the Aldar clan, in whose village Chermen lives. Guided by mercenary motives, Dacco strikes a deal with Prince Tsarai. Together, they rob people and then divide the loot between themselves.
By some chance, Chermen learns of the deal and informs his friends about it. At first, he thinks that no one in the Aldar village would believe him, the bastard, and that the plot would remain unexposed. But the friends accept the challenge.

Aleksandr Rogozhkin - Karaul (1990)



29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

Synopsis (courtesy of the two IMDB comments):

Very cinematic Russian tale of alienation and lost identity
I saw this film on a local government television station in Australia called SBS which played it at midnight. There's something very beautiful about this film which despite being set amidst the cold, harsh landscape of a desolate Russian territory it features the vitally honest, wan, lost eyes of the lead actor (whose name I can't recall regrettably) whose vivid sense of alienation was extremely memorable. Its a B&W film about a military guard who finds himself lost amidst his fellow guards' corruption and his own painful sense of duty versus his sense of goodness. Its a classic, familiar storyline but the use of black and white film is extremely powerful. It also contains a homo-erotic theme - obvious in parts like the shower-room scene in which the lead characters nakedness offers both symbolic proof of his feeling of emptiness but also the sad truth that even reduced to nakedness his alienation from fellow guards is unbreakable. Throughout this film the sad beauty is haunting but there are some strong moments of violence. This is a film filled with silences in which the eyes are very much windows to the soul. I found myself quietly reflective after viewing this film.