Oleg Yankovsky Movies

The true story of one of Russia's most tyrannical leaders is given a new screen adaptation in this historical drama from director Pavel Lounguine. In the 16th century, Tsar Ivan IV (Pyotr Mamonov) had already gained the nickname "Ivan The Terrible" for his anger and violent paranoia, and as he becomes more increasingly devoted to the Russian Orthodox faith (especially as many of his enemies in other lands are Muslim), he's found himself having profound disagreements with church leaders. Ivan appoints his longtime friend Filipp (Oleg Yankovsky) as the church's new metropolitan, but Filipp finds himself in an uncomfortable position when his rulings on doctrine run counter to the wishes of Ivan and his fierce loyalists, including Tsarina Maria Temryukovna (Ramilya Iskander). After the Polish army takes the city of Polotsk, Ivan orders the execution of his military leaders; Filipp gives the condemned men sanctuary in his church, but in time he's forced to give in to Ivan and his personal army. A severe rift grows between Ivan and Filipp as the latter becomes convinced he cannot serve God and the tsar at the same time. Tzar (aka Tsar) was an official selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" program. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Husband and wife Viorica Mesina and Sergiu Prodan make their directorial debut with Bed of Procust, a romantic drama based on a Romanian novel and set in the twenties. Opening with the suicide of Ladima (Oleg Yankovsky), the majority of the film involves his friend Fred (Petru Vutcarau) discovering that the two men had love lives that interconnected in unexpected ways. The film was screened at the Berlin Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A mute American working on a low-budget movie runs afoul of the Russian mafia in this internationally produced thriller. Billy (Marina Zudina), a special-effects makeup artist who is unable to speak, is in Moscow working on a cheapie slasher flick directed by Andy (Evan Richards), her sister's boyfriend. Late one night, Billy returns to the set to pick up some equipment and stumbles on what appears to be the filming of an actual snuff film. Watching, unseen, as an "actress" (Olga Tolstetskaya) is bludgeoned to death before her very eyes, Billy flees the set, pursued by the snuff film's crew. Eventually, she escapes and tells her story to her sister, Karen (Fay Ripley), and Andy. The film crew convinces the police that it was simply some special effects that Billy witnessed, then they start a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the hapless Americans. The intrigue soon leads Billy and her friends to "The Reaper" (Alec Guinness), the shadowy financier of an entire snuff-film underground. Director Anthony Waller's screenplay for Mute Witness began as a tale of gangsters in 1930s Chicago, but he rewrote it to take advantage of Russia's analogous present-day climate -- and the country's cheap sets and labor. Unexpected problems, from a diptheria epidemic to unexpected fines at the customs gate, nearly sank the production. The director convinced Guinness to appear in the film several years before principal photography began; the veteran thespian was paid nothing for his scenes, which were shot in a single morning in Germany. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

Junya Sato directs this historical epic about an Japanese sailor shipwrecked in Russia. Set during the Edo period (1600-1868, an era of great international isolation when going abroad was an offense punishable by death), the film centers on ship captain Daikokuya Kodayu (Ken Ogata), who, while transporting a load of rice from Ise to Edo (pre-modern Tokyo), gets blown off course. Nine months later, he and his ragged crew land on Kamchatka Peninsula. There they brave Siberian winters, and Russia's labyrinthine bureaucracy. Along the way, Kodayu learns Russian and befriends a local scholar (Oleg Yankovskii), who accompanies him on his exhausting journey across the tundra to St. Petersburg where he meets Catherine the Great. Ten years later, when he returns to Japan, he is immediately jailed. Will the hero be put to death? ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Dorothy Segda essays three roles in the Hungarian-made My 20th Century. The film begins with the birth of twin girls to a Budapest mother (Dorothy Segda) in 1880. Orphaned early on, the girls are forced to sell matches on the streets until both are adopted by two separate families. Flash forward to 1900: Having lost track of one another, the grown-up twins take separate compartments on the Orient Express. One of the girls (Segda again) has become the pampered mistress of a wealthy man; the other (Segda yet again) is a bomb-wielding anarchist. Director Ildiko Enyedi evidently intended My 20th Century as an allegorical statement concerning the status of women in the modern mechanical age. The experiences of the twins are interspersed with shots of Thomas Edison (Peter Andorai), whom we see at the beginning of the film perfecting his incandescent light bulb on the very day that the sisters are born. The more technological advances made by Edison, the more confused the twins become in establishing their own roles in an advancing civilization. Adroitly avoiding cut-and-dried symbolism, Ildiko Enyedi keeps the audience wondering what she's up to by including such surrealistic vignettes as a caged chimpanzee recounting the day of his capture! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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

This dramatic tragedy is taken from the short story by Leo Tolstoy. Vasili (Oleg Yankovsky) recalls his past love affair and marriage with Lisa (Irina Selezneva). When a piano-playing gypsy gives Lisa music lessons, her husband becomes enraged and tries to kill him. Lisa is accidentally murdered, and the court acquits the distraught and lonely husband for his crime of passion. ~ Dan Pavlides, 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

Nostalghia is Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's enigmatic work about a writer (Oleg Yankovsky) who, trapped by his fame and an unhappy marriage, seeks out his cultural past in Italy. Here he meets Erland Josephson, a local pariah who declares that the world is coming to an end. The writer finds this prophecy curiously more alluring than the possibility of a dead-end future. Nostalghia won the Grand Prix de Creation and the International Critics Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi