Zinaida Kirienko Movies
- 1963
A Russian engineer oversees a pipe-laying project to bring oil from the frozen North country. The rights of individual workers are championed, but not at the expense of the common good for all of society. Thin character sketches accompany the basic plot which does manage to point out, though carefully, government restrictions in the lives of the characters and how they are affected. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ivan Pereverzev, Nina Urgant, (more)
- 1961
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by the great writer Leo Tolstoy, this engrossing drama is set at the turn of the 20th century and involves a momentous decision on the part of a young nobleman to take a hike from his present existence. He cannot bear to continue in the kind of meaningless life he has supposedly enjoyed, and so he travels to the Caucasus and settles into a Cossack community. Once there, he learns to appreciate real human qualities and values, falls in love, and makes genuine friends. Thus transformed, he has to decide whether to stay or to return to his responsibilities in the life he left behind. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonid Gubanov, Boris Andreyev, (more)
- 1960
Once again, Russian director Yulia Solnsteva fulfills her goal of directing movies that her late husband Alexandre Dovchenko scripted but did not live long enough to bring to the screen. In this standard wartime drama, the emphasis is on the heroics of both the civilians and the soldiers during times of severe stress in World War II. At the core of the action is one man in particular, whose sacrifices and heroics speak for a much larger group. Message aside, there are plenty of well-staged battle scenes to sustain attention. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Andreyev, Sergei Lukyanov, (more)
Russian filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk is both director and star of this melancholy wartime fable. Bondarchuk portrays Andrey Sokolov, a World War II-era Soviet citizen who is captured by Nazis. He goes through hell, but is sustained by the possibility that someday he'll be reunited with his loved ones. Upon his release, Sokolov discovers that his whole family has died during the war. Originally titled Sudba Cheloveka, Destiny of a Man represented Sergei Bondarchuk's directorial debut. Its international release in 1961 (two years after it was made) was a genuine eye-opener to film-critic curmudgeons who believed that Russian filmmakers, while brilliant in assembling propaganda pieces, were lacking in humanity and emotionalism. An enormous worldwide success, Destiny of a Man smoothed the path for the more spectacular Bondarchuk productions (War and Peace, Waterloo) still to come. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergei Bondarchuk, Zinaida Kirienko, (more)
- 1958
The well-known writer Alexandre Dovjenko died before his screenplay for Poema O More could be transformed into a filmed drama, and so his widow, Yulia Solnsteva took on the task with dedication and a clear understanding of what her husband had intended. At the crux of the routine drama is a small town that is about to go under when a major dam is completed and the area is flooded, creating a sizeable lake. As people return to say good-bye to the lives and the homes they once knew in the town, differences of opinion on the sacrifice they made crop up. At stake is the "Russian" way of life and whether or not progress should include this type of sacrifice for the common good. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Boris Livanov, Boris Andreyev, (more)
And Quiet Flows the Don was the first of Russian writer/director Sergei Gerasimov's trilogy of films based on the popular novel by Mikhail Sholokhov. Pyotr Glebov plays a fierce Cossack warrior from a small, insulated Russian community, who tries to cut off all ties with his tyrannical father. He fights valiantly in World War I, then returns to his wife, whom his father had forced him to marry. The young man rebels against this arranged union by carrying on with the bride of a fellow Cossack. And Quiet Flows the Don represents only the first part of Sholokhov's epic novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daniil Ilchenko, A. Filippova, (more)
