Olga Volkova Movies
- 1995
This French-Italian drama is set in pre-Revolutionary Russia during 1907 and chronicles the relationship between a cold-hearted, blue-blooded woman and a handsome stranger. The two first meet during a walk in the park. Later, the woman, Natalia's, husband, a dentist, is found murdered in his home. Natalia finds herself the prime suspect in the death. She seems to be unmoved by the whole situation and continues to carry on with her two disparate lovers. One of them is a revolutionary and the other a conservative sculptor. One night she is again walking when she finds herself in the midst of a revolutionary fracas. Fortunately, the stranger appears and saves her. He takes her to his elegant apartment and there she tells him all about her life. Eventually the real murderer is revealed. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sandrine Bonnaire, William Hurt, (more)
- 1993
Beginning with perestroika and reaching its peak after the demise of the Soviet Union, pessimistic youth sub-culture films abounded in Russia and the former republics. Anguely V Rayou is another example of these "youth without future" films. Based on the novel Two Notebooks by Piotr Kojevnikov, the action takes place in the Leningrad of 1975, when the "stagnation" era is at its peak. Two teenagers, Micha and Galia, are experiencing a slow death in the slums of the city. Galia's aunt is going crazy in her desperation. Micha's mother is killed by a drunk. One of their friends has committed suicide. These kids are typical of a generation wasted by alcohol and misfortune. Some are bound to become outcasts, some will be destroyed, and others will be sacrificed in Afghanistan. The title is ironic, as there is neither paradise nor angels in this story. It comes from an expression the heroine keeps using: "You drink one shot and you're immediately like the angels in paradise." The film is a drama that at certain moments produces brief reliefs of laughter. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Konstantin Gaekha, Yelena Svintsova, (more)
- 1990
Mendel Krik (Ramaz Chkhikvadze) is Jewish and no longer young, living in Odessa in the 1920s. He has lived a full life already, surviving pogroms during which many Jews were killed, and has raised his family of sons and daughters and started them in his haulage business. Now, he wants to buy a piece of land somewhere and settle down on it with his mistress, to leave all his past behind. Meanwhile, his son Benya (Viktor Gvozditsky) is living a double life. While he still has some small connection with the moving business, most of the time he's a virtual king in Odessa's busy underworld gangs. His loyalty is to them, not to his father, his heritage, or to the authorities, so that when the region erupts in an anti-Jewish pogrom, Benya beats up his father, just as if he were not Jewish himself. This story is interwoven with images from the Biblical story of David and his son Absalom. The artifices of movie-style storytelling are cunningly revealed from time to time: the fact that the Tower of Babel is a small construction being manipulated by stagehands/actors, or the wires which control the fall of a gangster who is supposedly falling a great distance. This film is drawn from Zakat from the book Stories from Odessa by the once-popular but later purged novelist Isaak Babel. Sergei Eisenstein had wanted to shoot a film from this very same material, and this movie is the first drama dealing in any way with Jewish themes since the ban which thwarted Eisenstein. A 1989 film, Bindyuzhnik i Korol (The Drayman and the King) took this same story as the basis for a rather grim musical. The fact that both these films got produced reflects a softening of long-standing Soviet anti-Semitic attitudes. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ramaz Chkhikvadze, Viktor Gvozditsky, (more)
- 1988
The original title of the German-Russian coproduction To Kill a Dragon was Ubit Drakona. The "dragons" slain during the film's 118 minutes are symbolic, like practically everything else in the story. Adapted from a play by Yevgeni Shvarts, the film is thin on plot, heavy on philosophy. It's hard to say, but the reams of dialogue expounded by the main characters might be more digestible in the original Russian. Director Mark Zakharov had previously risen to prominence as the man behind the Soviet TV miniseries adaptation of The Twelve Chairs. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alexander Abdulov, Oleg Yankovsky, (more)
- 1987
- PG13
This Russian romantic comedy drama with satirical overtones serves as an ideal vehicle for the effervescent talents of Tatiana Dogileva. She portrays a nurse with whom bureaucrat Leonid Filatov falls in love after having a heart problem. Director Eldar Ryazanov doesn't seem to know when best to end a scene, thus inflating a charming comic idea well past its worth at times. Fortunately, the focus throughout is on Ms. Dogileva, who can make even the dullest scene come vibrantly to life. A Forgotten Tune for the Flute was one of the earliest movie arrivals in the US after the fall of Communism; more of the same, please! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leonid Filatov, Tatyana Dogileva, (more)
- 1986
In this melodrama, Masha (Natalia Anreischenko) is a research lab worker who throws her husband out of the house when she discovers he has a mistress. Her friends encourage her to attend parties in order to be sociable and to perhaps meet a new man. She goes home with a taxi driver, but she leaves suddenly when his wife returns unexpectedly. There are comic touches to this feature, but viewers should be warned of a brutal gang-rape scene. After her adventures, Masha considers reconciling with her wayward husband when he vows to give up his mistress. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Natalya Andreichenko, Igor Kostolevsky, (more)
Rating Systems
Blockbuster
BLOCKBUSTER name, design and related marks are trademarks of Blockbuster L.L.C.
2013 Blockbuster L.L.C. All rights reserved.
Portions of Content Provided by Rovi Corporation. 2013 Rovi Corporation.