Yevgeni Yevstigneyev Movies
- 1992
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ken Ogata, Toshiyuki Nishida, (more)
- 1990
In this drama, a directing debut of the popular Russian actor Leonid Filatov, the actors at a Moscow repertory theater company react with ever-increasing activism to the news that their company is to be closed down by the government. One of the rep company's directors committed the cardinal sin of defecting during an international tour. At first, the members of the company simply lodge their protests with the bureaucrat who is responsible for the order of closure. When this doesn't move him, they resort to attempts to seduce him and then blackmail him. Still, he will not relent. They finally try a hunger strike. This film is based on a true story. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vladimir A. Ilyin, Alexander Abdulov, (more)
- 1989
Isaac Babel was a popular writer in the 1920s and 1930s who fell victim to Stalin's "purges". His exact date of death was never established. It's assumed that he died in 1940. Understandably, his works were not published again until the '60s. Another reason why his works were not adapted to the screen earlier was the pervasive anti-Semitic attitude among the state and communist bureaucracy during the Soviet times. Bindyuzhnik i Korol is a musical based on Isaac Babel's works. It was much hyped but it wasn't a huge success. Maxim Leonidov, who played Benya Krik (the "king") in the movie, was a handsome-looking leading singer from the popular Leningrad beat quartet "Sekret". "Sekret" was a Russian hommage to The Beatles. Shortly after starring in the movie, Leonidov immigrated to Israel, where he organized another band. In the story, set in the Jewish quarter of a Russian city, Mendel Krik (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan) is the wealthy owner of a large livery stable (the "drayman") who lords it over everyone who comes in his path, especially his two grown sons, whom he plans to disinherit. One of his sons, Benya, is far cleverer than his critical wrath of a father thinks, and manages to take his father's business away from him. This musical generally has a somber tone, and resembles the dark, serious works of Bertold Brecht rather than the much lighter tone of Fiddler on the Roof, with which it has sometimes been compared. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Zinoviy Gerdt, (more)
- 1989
A Russian entry in the 1990 Cannes film festival, Gorrod Zero top-bills Leonid Flatov as an engineer named Varadin. Lacking a few vital parts for an air conditioner, Varadin heads off to Gorrod Zero, aka "Zero City." He might have been better off staying bed. Before long, Varadin discovers that everyone in Zero City is a few cards shy of a full deck. Before the day is over, Our Hero is almost as loopy as the rest of the batch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leonid Filatov, Oleg Basilashvili, (more)
- 1988
This Soviet film tells the story of Preobrazhensky (Yevgeni Yevstigneyev), a surgeon, who is a professor of medicine in Moscow. After the Russian revolution is thoroughly in place, he is visited by the housing committee, who feels that he should share the spaciousness his "big" five-room apartment with several others. Meanwhile, in an experiment he implants a dog with the heart and brain of a tramp. The dog gradually transforms into a man (Vladimir Tolokonnikov), but still has some doggy attitudes: for instance, he chooses to call himself Sharikov. Since Sharik is a common Russian dog name, just as "Rex" might be in the West, it is clear where the man-dog's sympathies lie. Sharikov becomes associated with the local Party officialdom, and begins to terrorize the professor and his assistant, Dr. Bormental (Boris Plotnikov). After he becomes a member of the housing committee, he wangles a room in the professor's apartment. Also, after being appointed a member of a state committee to deal with stray animals, Sharikov refuses to allow dogs to be killed, only cats. The movie is based on the 1925 story by Mikhail Bulgakov, which was very hard to find in Russia up until the perestroika. After people began reading it for the first time, they were amazed to discover how daringly he had criticized the emerging Soviet system. This Russian made-for-TV movie is perhaps the most successful adaptation of the story; an Italian version was made in 1975. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yevgeni Yevstigneyev, Vladimir Tolokonnikov, (more)
- 1986
A light drama, this unpretentious story unveils the past and present of a modern dance instructor living in Moscow. Back in the 1950s in Gagra, unknown to his current pupils, the teacher was a celebrated tap dancer who once performed on stage with his five-year old daughter. The laurels of his past were left behind when he came to Moscow to work. But when a television show airs footage of the coach in his heyday, his students and colleagues decide to do something to honor his past (and present) accomplishments. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yevgeni Yevstigneyev, Alexander Pankratov-Chyorny, (more)
