Lyudmila Ivanova Movies

This unusual and wintry film received the Grand Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1991 and was considered artistically important by many critics. However, not all of them were of the same opinion, and the Variety reviewer for the movie trade attacked it with particularly sustained, passionate invective. The movie takes place among the Nyvkh people, an indigenous tribal group that lives on the far northern Arctic islands of Japan. Scenes from life in one of their settlements indicate that their lives are physically strenuous, and that they have an unusual relationship with nature. After some initial scenes, the story follows a family elder as he asks permission from a tree to cut it down and make a canoe with it. Eventually it is made, and three generations of Nyvkh men take it onto the ocean for a fishing expedition. A fog rolls in, and the three grown men and one child are stranded on the ocean without any sense of where they are. Each of the men, beginning with the oldest, debates with himself whether his continued survival will benefit anyone, and when he senses that the answer is "no," slips into the sea, until only the youngest is left. He is a little boy just past the age of being a toddler, and the boat, seemingly by chance, bumps into shore with him in it. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Sergei Makarov's (Oleg Yankovsky) behavior is the focus of this seriocomedy about a man who is in no way aggressive or embittered although he may never find a place where he "belongs." Sergei has a wife and child and a mistress yet he is not completely happy with these relationships. He also works in an engineering complex and flirts with one of the women there -- who like everyone else, treats him in a patronizing way. His behavior, to the adults around him, is rather childish -- it is as though Sergei has not fully grown up, but people are not unsympathetic to him. Just as he takes flight in his dreams, he also "takes flight" in reality -- unable to see from the perspective of others. When his mistress threatens to leave him, for example, he falls down with the heavy melon he is bringing to her and she rushes to see if he is okay -- then he kisses her. After various escapades, one involving a police chase, Sergei celebrates his birthday party -- a large outing in the countryside. The issue at stake is that he is now 40 years old and unlike most adults at that age, he seems unable to leave his childhood behind, and by the standards of his own society, should have already accomplished "something" in life. This film by director Roman Balayan created a lot of discussion and a good response in the USSR when it was released in the early 1980s. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi