Nikolai Gubenko Movies

This melodrama with a kind heart revolves around a decrepit old-age home that is in worse shape than some of its tenants. After Dr. Voloshina (Zhanna Bolotova) arrives on the scene, the leaky roofs get fixed, and everything is spiffed up, including the elderly residents who are given a renewed lease on life by the caring doctor. The old and new are contrasted in other ways as well: as residents discuss the bygone revolutionary days, modern music fills the room from a TV set, and helicopters make their noisy way to a nearby military base. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The original Russian title Podranki can be translated as War Orphans. The protagonist is an adult writer who undergoes a flashback at the drop of a hat. He recalls how he was orphaned when his father was killed in World War II and his mother committed suicide. He remembers the appalling treatment afforded him by a sadistic orphanage official. And he muses over his losing contact with his brothers and sisters. This is why the grown-up writer is currently involved in lobbying for better treatment of Russian orphans. Orphans caused a minor stir in 1977 when it became the first Russian film in nearly two decades to be chosen for the Cannes Film Festival by the festival judges, rather than being submitted by the Soviets. The film did not see the light of a carbon arc in America until 1980. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The desperate battles of Soviet troops during the German invasion of Russia are chronicled in this epic film. The effort to defend the country is shown to unify the people and the soldiers, quelling their doubts about the regime. This film won the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 1977. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

After suffering artistically at the hands of Russian censors (his Asya's Happiness wound up being shelved for two decades for a variety of obscure political reasons), director Andrei Konchalovsky briefly played safe with a brace of elegiac literary adaptations. The first of these was A Nest of Gentlefolk, adapted from a Turgenev story. Put in the simplest possible terms, the film concerns a well-meaning landowner, his adulterous wife, and the woman that he loves. Loenid Kulagin, Irina Kupchenko and Beata Tyskiewicz are the actors comprising this angst-ridden triangle. Originally titled Dvoranskoye gnezdo, the film was also released in English-speaking countries as A Nest of Gentry and Nobiliary Nest. In his characteristic fashion, Konchalovsky handles his material in loving (if slightly mannered fashion). He followed Nest of Gentlefolk with a cinemazation of Checkov's Uncle Vanya (1970), then spent four inactive years before turning out his biggest pre-Hollywood financial success, The Romance of Lovers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Angel, was made in 1967 by Andrei Smirnov and is based on a short story by Yuri Olesha. It was shelved by censors for unknown reasons until 1987, when it was paired with another film and exhibited under the combined title Natshalo Nevedomogo Veka. It concerns the 1920 journey of a group of refugees fleeing the disruptions of the fighting between the White and Red Russians in the civil war. In the story, when the train runs off the tracks, a group of determined survivors get it running again with a great deal of pluck and daring. When they are captured by the White Russian calling himself "Angel of God," despite their sufferings at his hands, they somehow maintain their dignity. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This movie was originally filmed in 1962 as Zastava Ilyicha (The Ilyich Gate). It was one of the first films that reflected the younger generation's resentment of the older generation's ways. The original title referred to Lenin's paternal name (his full name was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin). Even after the decanonization of Stalin, Lenin still remained the icon for the old generation. "Ilyich" was often used as an affectionate term in Soviet iconography. The film invoked Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev's sharp criticism. Meeting the studio members, he said: "Do you want us to believe in the scene where a father doesn't know how to answer his son's question "how to live?" At the censor's insistence the movie was re-cut and released under the "apolitical" title Mne Dvatdsat Let (I'm Twenty) in 1964. In 1991, the film was re-released and shown at the London Film Festival with ninety minutes of the original footage restored, resulting in a film which was 175 minutes long. In the story, a young man palling around in Moscow with his friends is forced to confront the realities of his future and choose a direction in which to go. His friends are likewise brought up short by their limited opportunities for realizing their dreams. They have jobs or schools waiting for them, which are things their parents didn't have, so their older relatives are puzzled by the youngsters' evident distaste for their choices. Some of the restored scenes include one in which the boy meets his father's ghost, and a long scene which takes place at a poetry reading. The ghost scene, among others, represented a significant break from hitherto obligatory film conventions of social realism. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide