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Gotlib Roninson Movies

1976  
PG  
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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

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Starring:
Yelena SoloveyAlexander Kalyagin, (more)
 
1975  
 
Add The Irony of Fate, Or Enjoy Your Bath to Queue Add The Irony of Fate, Or Enjoy Your Bath to top of Queue  
This modestly budgeted, made-for-TV romantic comedy became one of the most popular films in the former Soviet Union and a staple of TV broadcasts on New Year's Eve. It's based on the premise that modern apartment complexes look so much alike that one cannot distinguish one city from another. On New Year's Eve, Muscovite Yevgeny Lukashin (Andrei Myagkov) finally dares to make a marriage proposal to Galya (Olga Naumenko). They plan to celebrate the New Year together quietly, but Lukashin's friends convince him that first he should attend their annual meeting at a bathhouse. The meeting quickly turns into an improvisational bachelor party for Yevgeny. Having consumed large amounts of alcohol, they cannot remember which one of them was supposed to fly to Leningrad to meet his wife. So they put the sleepy Lukashin on a plane. Upon his arrival in the Leningrad airport, Yevgeny gives the taxi driver his Moscow street address and the cab takes him to an apartment complex located on a street with the same name. The building looks very much like his own, so Lukashin, still not quite sober, does not realize that he is in another city. He enters someone else's apartment because his key fits the door lock and he quickly falls asleep on a couch. When the apartment's rightful resident, Nadya (Polish actress Barbara Brylska), comes home, she wakes up the intruder and tells him to get out. The bewildered Yevgeny insists that he is at home and she is the one who should get out. Eventually he sobers and finds out about his predicament. He is about to leave when the situation is further complicated by the arrival of Nadya's straight-laced fiancé Ippolit (Yuri Yakovlev) who does not believe in Lukashin's story and accuses Nadya of being unfaithful. The interaction between the three characters results in Nadya and Yevgeny's gradual falling in love with each other. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

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Starring:
Andrei MyagkovBarbara Brylska, (more)
 
1975  
 
In the former Soviet Union, all apartment blocks were owned by the State. Because they were poorly built and poorly maintained, service and repair people held tremendous power, and used it. One plumber might serve a whole street of apartment buildings, and could demand whatever he wanted in order to perform even the most routine repairs, ie...extra money or a bottle of vodka (or more). In this comedy, the reality of this situation is clearly depicted. Afonya (Leonid Kuraviev) is a typical drunken, bullying plumber, extorting extra money and drink from his victims. He pals around with his buddy Kolya (Yevgeny Leonov), spending most of his "working" day in bars, drinking beer and eating crawfish and salted fish. Despite constant reprimands from the workers' committee, nothing puts a dent in his behavior until he falls in love with lovely young nurse Katya (Yevgenia Simonova), who insists that he treat people better. His buddy Kolya wants him to continue doing things the old way. West Europeans viewing this film found it surrealistic, because they could not believe the situations in it were real. Soviets, on the other hand, found it side-splittingly right on target, and it was very popular. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

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Starring:
Leonid KuravlevYevgeny Leonov, (more)