Lidiya Sukharevskaya Movies

After several previous attempts by foreign directors who miss the mark, this Russian film version of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel Anna Karenina most accurately follows the Tolstoy novel and remains superior to all other versions to date. It concerns the struggle of a woman to find her place in Russian society. Anna (Tatiana Samoilova) is shunned by society when she leaves her older husband and small son for the dashing young cavalry officer Vronsky (Vassili Lanovai). The officer is torn between his love for Anna and his social and military responsibilities. Bolshoi ballet star Maia Plisetskaya is the noble Princess who at first helps Anna, then turns her back on her. Anna is caught between the worlds of high society and privilege and the downtrodden peasants who are victimized by the economic elite. She tries desperately to follow her heart as she is harshly judged by society for trying to find her place. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

Stylistically and perhaps ethnically beyond the pale of ordinary movie fare, this Russian drama set in 1904 in a remote military garrison is a specialized tale of a particular period. Most of its story is told through narration. On the eve of the downfall of Czarist Russia, the soldiers in this military garrison are leading a dull and useless existence -- there is nothing meaningful for them to do. In order to combat boredom, they engage in dubious remedies, one of which is found in a bottle and another in beating each other up. When not drunk or maiming each other, the soldiers also fight "duels of honor." In the midst of this debased environment, a young officer has fallen in love with another man's wife. As sure as the sun rises in the east, he will be forced to defend himself in a duel. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

The Immortal Garrison is set in June of 1941, at the outset of the Nazi invasion of Russia. A group of Soviet servicemen, languidly biding their time at the Brest fortress on the Polish border, are suddenly galvanized into action. All desires to return home to their wives and sweethearts are swept aside as the courageous garrison unites to thwart a common enemy. The siege of Brest has served as story material for countless Russian films: in lieu of contradictory evidence, Immortal Garrison must be adjudged the best of these films. For its American release, Immortal Garrison was double-featured with another Soviet production, The Mexican. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The life of Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, previously hoked up by Hollywood as Song of Scheherezade, is afforded more reverential treatment in this Soviet production. Grigori Belov stars as Rimsky-Korsakov, here portrayed as a pre-Leninist revolutionary whose music inspires the proletariat to offer defiance against the Czar. Naturally, most of Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous compositions are given ample screen time. Particularly well staged is L. Griasenko's interpretation of the title character in the opera Snow Maiden. The orchestrations were provided by the Kirov Opera Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of B. Haikin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Girl No. 217 may well be the best effort of Russian writer/director Mikhail Romm, who usually turned out dull, unimaginative communist propaganda films. This disturbingly realistic drama concerns a Russian peasant girl named Tanya (Yelena Kuzmina) who, upon being captured by the Nazis in the early stages of WWII, is forced into slave labor. Sold to a bourgeois German family, Tanya is treated abominably, her physical and mental well-being methodically worn down by her insensitive new "owners." She is even robbed of her identity and forced to answer only to the name "No. 217." A series of subplots demonstrate the various indignities and atrocities heaped upon other Nazi POWs, but it is the plight of Tanya that lingers in the viewer's memory. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on a Russian folk tale, Vasilisa Prekrasnaya (Vasilisa the Beautiful) is about a father whose three sons go out to finds themselves brides. Two of the boys come home with perfectly normal girls, but the youngest brother, Ivanushka, brings home a frog from the marshes. His father finds this most curious, but what he does not know was that the frog was actually a beautiful girl named Vasilisa who was cursed by a magical serpent whom she refused to marry. Now Ivanushka must overcome tremendous obstacles to restore Vasilisa to her true form and free her from the serpent's spell. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi