Sofya Pavlova Movies

The 19th-century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's classic drama The Seagull continued a theatrical movement known as "realism," which focused on the everyday crises and foibles of more believably real people. In order to perform the roles of the new dramatic movement properly, the Actors Theater of Moscow refined a new style of acting, later synthesized under Konstantin Stanislavsky, and known in the U.S. as "method acting." Thus Chekhov's plays represent a theatrical peak to be scaled, and are challenging somewhat in the manner of Shakespeare's or Moliere's plays. This lavish Soviet Russian production attempts to scale that summit. The story concerns an actress, Arkadina (Alla Demidova) who is distressed by the complexity of her life, and of the lives of her friends and family. All the people around her are consumed by self-doubt and dark obsessions, which they discuss at length. Her lover, Tregorin (Yuri Yakovlev), is a self-important but renowned writer who is playing psychological tricks on a simple country girl who has a crush on him. Her son, a playwright, is fascinated by death and may be suicidal. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Rasskaz Moei Materi (aka Stories of My Mother and The Communist) was one of Russia's more prestigious entries in the 1958 Venice Film Festival. Yevgeny Urbansky plays Vassili, a dedicated communist who assumes control of a strategically important warehouse during the 1917 revolution. Almost single-handedly, Vassili fends off the counterattacks of the loyalist White Russians, here depicted as double-dyed villains. He finds time to romance the beautiful Aniuta (Sofya Pavlova) before he meets a spectacular death at the hands of 20 of his enemies. Even those unsympathetic to the film's politics will be swept up by the excitement and grandeur of Rasskaz Moei Materi. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide