Ivan Bortnik Movies
- 1995
A Russian soldier spends seven years in an Afghan prison. By the time he is released he has become a devout Muslim. This multi-textured Russian drama follows what happens when he finally returns home to his post-Perestroika, Russian Orthodox rural village. Kolya comes from a family of hardworking peasants. His homecoming is joyous as his mother, his older brother and the entire village rushes out to greet him. Things come to a grinding halt when Kolya refuses to drink the proffered vodka. He then informs them of his conversion. The townsfolk are most displeased and he becomes an object of ridicule. The other young men frequently beat him and only Kolya's former lover, Vera, who is more open-minded than the others, tries to accept him. She has a hard time though when he explains the Islamic views on premarital sex. Kolya, himself discovers that he was unprepared for the changes in his village. With newly resurrected free-enterprise, many of the villagers have become materialistic and the town fathers are corrupt. In the story's climax, Kolya finds himself having a final confrontation with a murderous stranger who has come to settle an old score. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yevgeny Mironov, Nina Usatova, (more)
- 1991
Geopolitics and big oil play into the capture of a British geologist (Anthony Andrews) by the Russian military in Iran at the end of 1945. As soon as they capture him, they ship him off to a Siberian prison camp. The majority of the rest of the film is about his attempts to survive, and the relationships and adventures he has while imprisoned. Despite the presence of an English star, the rest of the major performers in this film are Russian, and it was one of the first films made on Russian soil to clearly depict life in the infamous gulags (prison labor camps) of Siberia. The geologist has numerous significant relationships, but the most dramatically compelling are with a female camp doctor and a young girl prisoner. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Andrews, Vladimir A. Ilyin, (more)
- 1981
Popular Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov was riding the crest of several well-received films (such as Slave of Love, 1976, or Five Evenings, 1978) when he opened this movie in the non-competing section at Cannes in 1983 -- so expectations were high. Unfortunately, this may have been one of his weakest career efforts. Intended as a satire on the urban/rural dichotomies in Russia, the film features Nonna Mordyukova as Maria Konovalova, a grandmother who is left to continue living on her own in the countryside when her daughter and family move to the big city of Moscow. Unnerved at being left alone and curious about what the urban attraction is anyway, Maria travels to her daughter's place and stays on for awhile. She sticks her unwanted nose into everyone's business -- daughter's, granddaughter's, ex-husband's, son-in-law's, and neighbors' too. By the time the meddlesome woman has alienated everyone around her (no wonder her family left), she realizes what she has done and bids a sniffling farewell as she heads to the train station and home -- but her family cannot leave it at that and decides to at least say good-bye on a better note. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nonna Mordyukova, Svetlana Kryuchkova, (more)
- 1978
Ilya Averbakh was considered to have been one of the better directors of film romances in the former Soviet Union. This story of a writer's love spans many decades. An elderly writer (Yuri Bogatyryov) is visiting his wife (Ewa Szykulska) at a medical establishment to give her a copy of his latest book. As he travels, he remembers how they met during the chaos surrounding the Russian Civil War (1918-21). She came to the door of his apartment looking for a room and was carrying her infant son with her. He took her under his wing, but his job of conveying the meaning of the revolution frequently sent him on trips which placed him in danger. The two of them married, but around the beginning the Second World War, his wife left him following the accidental death of her then-teenaged son. On an assignment to the front, he meets an injured publisher who tells him about her life since she left him -- her affairs and so on -- before he dies of his wounds. After the war, he returns to his apartment, which the two of them shared together for so many years, and he finds her sitting there in a darkened room. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yuri Bogatyrev, Ewa Szykulska, (more)
- 1977
The moral consequences of character are the perennial focus for this film's director Ilia Averbakh, who trained and worked as a physician before becoming a filmmaker. In this psychological drama, Zina (Svetlana Smirnova) is an extremely selfish and manipulative adolescent. She befriends her schoolteacher Vera Ivanova (Irinia Kutpschenko) and shares certain confidences with her, such as reading Vera's love-letters. When she inevitably has a falling-out with Vera, Zina effortlessly and thoughtlessly causes Vera much pain by using the information she has gained to attack her where it hurts. Oblivious to the harm she has caused, Zina travels with her schoolmates to summer camp. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Irina Kupchenko, Svetlana Smirnova, (more)
- 1976
Near the close of the Russian Civil War, in 1923, a young man begins studying journalism at a worker newspaper and has a series of romantic adventures which cause him to mature swiftly. He rescues a beautiful girl from an abusive family situation, only to lose her to a smooth-talking sharpster the first time he has to leave town on assignment. Another much nicer and more principled girl is really in love with him, but he doesn't know it. This bittersweet coming-of-age story was based on a novel by Vera Panova. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yelena Proklova, Yelena Koreneva, (more)
