Leonid Markov Movies

Mother Maria (Ludmilla Kasatkina) is so very saintly and predictable from the time she leaves her native Russia in 1917, through her establishing a home for Russian immigrants in Paris and joining the French resistance movement that it becomes hard to identify with her actions and decisions - even those made in the concentration camp. The real-life Russian poetess (Elisaveta Jurevna Kuzmina Karavaeva) must have had more depth. Director Sergei Kolosov has similarly not shown the less admirable side of French life during the war. In 1975, Sergei Kolosov worked with Ludmilla Kasatkina in Pomni Imya Svoye, a critically acclaimed war story that set standards this collaboration does not meet. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

No relation to the 1985 British film of the same name, the Russian The Shooting Party was based on an Anton Chekhov story. Most of the film takes place on the estate of Count Volsky, where the lovely Olga is forced into a loveless marriage with Volsky's overseer. Standing wistfully on the sidelines is provincial magistrate Petroff, who loves Olga but dares not speak up. Petroff's inability to express himself at the right time, coupled with Olga's inevitable fall from respectability, results in tragedy. The Shooting Party was previously filmed in Hollywood in 1944, under the title Summer Storm. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi