Andrei Rostotsky Movies
- 1993
In this satire, the Countess Masha (Lyudmila Mordovinova) is the young wife of an important government official in Tsarist Russia. She has been having a series of inexplicable nightmares. Eventually she comes to believe that they are experiences of the future - 1993 in Russia to be exact. She is horrified. When she tells her husband the contents of her dreams, he is horrified. When she dresses in a fashion from one of her dreams (the miniskirt), the Russian court is horrified. All the same, despite earnest attempts by her husband to propose some reforms which would prevent that future from happening, it is to no avail. Nothing, it seems, can prevent the "complete cretinization" of the Russia of the future. Her nightmarish dream/visions include one where she is a female government economics minister who sleeps with western moneymen in order to bamboozle loans out of them, in another, she works at a cafeteria as a waitress and must constantly be on the run to avoid being cornered by her lustful (male) coworkers. Actors from one time period reappear in other guises in the other. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oleg Basilashvili, Lyudmila Mordvinova, (more)
- 1993
This contemporary melodrama is narrated by a young woman (Anzhelika Nevolina) who was forced onto the streets when the death of her mother left her solely in the custody of her abusive father. After leaving home, she somehow found work, got married, and had some children. However, that all fell apart after the children died, and her marriage was no great shakes anyhow. Now she survives by petty thievery and occasional prostitution. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anzhelika Nevolina, Andrei Rostotsky, (more)
- 1990
The social ferment in late 19th century Russia which led to the 1917 Russian Revolution is movingly portrayed in this lengthy historical drama, which is very faithful to the 1907 novel The Mother by the celebrated Marxist writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936). In the story, "the mother" (Inna Tchourikova) has no other recourse than to watch her decent, kindly husband turn into an animalistic, drunken brute as a result of working in the inhuman conditions of a steel mill in the town of Sormovo. When he begins to express his suppressed rage by beating her, she is defended by her teenaged son Pavel (depicted Viktor Rakov as an adult, Sacha Chichonok as a boy). After his father's death, Pavel is forced to go to work in the same factory. However, Pavel and his friends begin investigating Marxism and socialist thought, and work to organize their fellow workers. One of them becomes a police informer, and when the friends discover this, they force him to commit suicide. Later, when Pavel is captured by the police, he pretends to be willing to inform on his group as well, but this is a ruse, and he leads demonstrations against the ownership of the factory. Meanwhile, Pavel's mother has gotten involved in the cause in small way. When the socialist cell Pavel belongs to is taken away to trial, they are sentenced to a prison term in Siberia, and he makes a fiery pro-socialist speech from the train platform as he is being shipped away. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Inna Churikova, Viktor Rakov, (more)
- 1982
Director Irina Poplavskaya adapted an autobiographical novel by author Valentin Rasputin for this film on his parents, a couple living in Siberia. The heroine is Valentin's mother, Vasilisa (Olga Ostroumova), a young wife who works hard for her growing family and her friends, and is admired by the villagers. Before she married Vasily (Mikhail Kononov) she was an outdoors woman, working in wheat fields and carting water from the river. Vasily, on the other hand, was not so devoted to hard labor, whether indoors or out, and is more of a poet. The couple fall in love and marry, and after the wedding they unavoidably embark on a family -- as child after child is born (adding up to a total of seven in the end). The new family responsibilities do not sit well with Vasily, and he takes to drinking and beating up his wife -- whom he loves -- in drunken fits. When she has a miscarriage because of one of these beatings, she banishes him to their outdoor shed where he must spend his days and nights, period. The Great War (World War II) cuts into Siberian life as men go off to war and several do not come back, including two of Vasilisa's sons. She and Vasily remain estranged when he returns from the war, yet both suffer, along with everyone else, when food becomes scarce and famine threatens many with starvation. Vasily and Vasilisa will reconcile, but it will take a few decades before that happens. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Olga Ostroumova, Mikhail Kononov, (more)
