Lidiya Dranovskaya Movies

This film was supposed to be released in 1973. Five hundred and thirty five copies were made but the film was shelved (as was virtually everything else directed by Kira Muratova) until 1987, when it was finally released to considerable critical acclaim. It received a FIPRESCI award (International Press Award) at the Locarno Film Festival, and the Grand Prize of the All-Union Film Festival in Tbilisi in 1987. In this movie, a single woman has put all her efforts into raising her only son, Sasha. When Sasha grew up to become a teenager, she thought that she could have some time for herself, so she responds to the courtship of Nikolai Sergeyevich. One summer, Sasha goes to visit his real father in Novosibirsk, on the other side of the country. When he returns, his mother notices that Sasha had changed. She secretly reads a letter that Sasha received from his father and she finds out that Sasha doesn't want to live with her any longer. She doesn't have enough wisdom to understand this desire on someone else's part. Sasha is shown to have a more delicate and understanding nature than his mother, for when he realizes that she is suffering because of his wish to leave, even though he is tired of her nagging, he decides to stay. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Compared to the somberly serious Russian films being released in the U.S. after WW II, the lighthearted The Train Goes East must have seemed like a breath of fresh air. The story begins on VJ day in August of 1945. Celebrating the victory, navy captain Lavrentyev (Leonid Gallis) sets his sights on romance, with pretty agricultural expert Sokolova (Lydia Dranovskaya) his willing target. Missing their train home, the captain and Sokolova are forced to find any available means of transportation, leading to a series of gently amusing situations. Along the way, the budding romance is threatened by the sort of mutual misunderstandings one usually finds in Hollywood screwball comedies. Train Goes East was the latest in a series of frothy concoctions by popular Russian filmmaker Yuri Raizman, who ironically had begun his career turning out such grimly realistic efforts as Forced Labor (1928) and The Earth Thirsts (1930). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi