Yevgeny Steblov Movies
- 1999
Love blooms amidst the backdrop of czarist Russia in Nikita Mikhalkov's The Barber of Siberia. The story opens in 1905 Springfield, MA, when a woman writes a letter to a young man in a military summer-training camp. He is currently being punished by one of his superiors, who forces him to wear a gas mask until he acknowledges that Mozart was a worthless composer. The woman has an important story to tell her addressee, and our story flashes back 20 years to Russia, where American Jane Callahan (Julia Ormond) is traveling to Moscow. A man who may or may not be Jane's father, Douglas McCracken (Richard Harris), is trying to perfect a machine, christened "The Barber of Siberia," that will harvest trees from the vast Siberian forests. Douglas hopes Jane can charm Gen. Radlov (Alexei Petrenko), the head of a Russian military academy, into arranging the financing that will enable him to complete his work on the harvester. En route, Jane meets a friendly Russian soldier, Andrei Tolstoy (Oleg Menshikov), and the two soon fall in love. Jane then meets and flirts with Radlov, who grows reciprocally fond of her -- enough so that he asks her to marry him. When it becomes evident she'd rather be with Tolstoy, he finds himself shipped off to Siberia after allegedly attacking a grand duke. Merging romance, costume drama, and slapstick comedy, The Barber of Siberia was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Oleg Menshikov, Julia Ormond, (more)
- 1994
This provocative Russian drama provides a disturbing examination of the post revolutionary values and philosophies of the country as a poet must decide which has more importance: his poetry, or his gun? The film's title has a double meaning. Makarov is the protagonist's name, but is it is also the name of a powerful Russian handgun. Makarov, the main character, is a poet suffering from writer's block. On his way home one night he encounters a black market arms dealer who asks if he'd like to buy a Makarov. The poet pays all of the money he received from his latest poetry volume, 10,000 rubles for the gun. He must now conceal the gun from his family. At home his wife reads him a poem about a bullet. Makarov hides the gun. Throughout the film, other characters continue to recite poems about guns, and this causes Makarov to look deeply at his values. Eventually the gun wins. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sergei Makovetsky, Jelena Majorova, (more)
- 1984
From a certain perspective, this film about the evils of forcing a child prodigy into a regimen of mental and physical improvement may unwittingly be somewhat hypocritical. Little six-year-old Pavlik is on a steady diet of music, chemistry, astronomy, judo, and natural foods so his parents can assure themselves that he will be fully developed mentally and physically. But when Pavlik stays with Granny, she lets him eat whatever he wants and although he really likes that novel idea, his parents fume at the grandmother for her carelessness. That tactic catalyzes Pavlik into running away - though fortunately he is sheltered by a new 17-year-old friend who tries to think of a way to get him back home. Before that can be figured out, Pavlik appears on a television show and knocks everyone flat because he can recite Shakespeare. His parents see him in his moment of fame and triumph, his friend sees him, everyone is proud, and of course, the scene also illustrates that Pavlik's mental abilities are what really counts. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kirill Serskiy-Golovko, Natalya Varley, (more)
Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov takes a break from emulating his beloved Chekhov to film the classic Ivan Goncharov novel Oblomov. The title character (played by Oleg Tabakov) is a 19th century Russian civil servant and landlord who chooses to go to bed one day--and never get up. Preferring to sleep his way through life rather than confront it, Oblomov is shaken from his slumbers by the arrival of a childhood friend Shtoltz. A series of flashbacks show why it is that this friend's presence gets Oblomov out of his 'jammies and back on his feet. Also known as A Few Days in the Life of I. I. Oblomov, this sprightly film is an excellent early example of the work of the director who would win a 1994 Oscar for his Burnt by the Sun. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Oleg Tabakov, Andryusha Razumovsky, (more)
Boris Rytsarev directed this sweeping 1976 Russian adaptation of the fairy tale classic The Princess and the Pea. Part of the Russian Cinema Council Collection, Printsessa Na Goroshine stars Alisa Frejndlikh and Andrei Podoshyan, and retells Hans Christian Anderson's beloved story of the prince who places a pea under the mattress of his would-be wives, in hopes of someday finding a woman who proves herself to be a real princess. With original dialogue in Russian, the film is available dubbed in English and French, and subtitled in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irina Malysheva, Andrei Podoshyan, (more)
Nikita Mikhalkov examines the plight of the filmmaker operating in an uncertain political climate in his irony-laden seriocomedy Slave of Love. The time is 1918, at the height of the Bolshevik revolution. A small group of filmmakers are hurriedly trying to complete a silent melodrama while the world changes all around them. As production progresses, leading lady Elena Solovei metamorphoses from self-centered movie star to committed revolutionary. Normally described as "Chekhovian," director Mikhalkov borrows a few pages from Pirandello. With Slave of Love he gained his first serious international attention. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Yelena Solovey, Alexander Kalyagin, (more)
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