Silvana Mangano-Marcello Mastroianni "Ojos negros" (Oci ciornie) 1987, de Nikita Mikhalkov.
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Dark Eyes (1987). An Italian tells his story of love to a Russian. In a series of flashbacks, Romano Patroni leaves his wife to visit a spa where he falls in love with a Russian woman. He returns to Italy resolved to leave his wife and marry his love.
Beautifully shot, and navigates the tonal shifts between humorous absurdism and tragic lost love incredibly well. Still, it never quite pulled me in, and the pacing felt off to me, although I'm not sure if I can entirely pinpoint why. A sumptuous period piece, but one that leaves something to be desired. 7/10.
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An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano by Nikita Mikhalkov
Based on Anton Chekhov's Platonov.
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Love in a Young Pioneer's Tie
Love in a Young Pioneer’s Tie
The cover of “A Summer in a Young Pioneer’s Tie,” as designed by Adams Carvalho
Katerina Silvanova was born and raised in Kharkiv, but moved to Russia at the age of twenty-two. She majored in forestry engineering, but never finished her studies. She has worked in sales all her life. Elena Malisova is a Muscovite and married, and works in IT. The girls [sic] had never been associated with…
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Nikita Sirgayevich doesn’t want you to see him unfastening Loktev’s belt… Wait, this is a real scene from “I Walk Around Moscow”
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film reviews: An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano (1977, Nikita Mikhalkov)
Synopsis: A film based on the various plays of Anton Chekhov. In the early 20th century, a beautiful but impoverished noblewoman invites friends and family to gather at her estate for a day of partying and enjoying the summer weather. Joining her are her sons and their wives, her lover and his wife, her children’s grandfather, and a neighboring nobleman and his daughters, as well as a wealthy businessman who has asked for her hand in marriage. What starts out as a day of pure fun and frolicking quickly devolves into arguments as old passions are reignited and relationships are strained under pressure. As the past comes back to haunt several of the characters and threatens to undo the present, relationships develop and devolve and the outcomes remain unknown until the end.
Review: The film starts out deceptively shallow. For the first twenty minutes the characters just lounge around on the front porch, play practical jokes on each other, and laugh and laugh at their own amusements. After fifteen minutes I was ready to write the movie off as a shallow, vapid film about nothing, and nearly quit watching, but the YouTube comments stopped me in my tracks. One commented on it being a complex film with phenomenal acting, and another commented on the attempted drowning of a character. I reluctantly continued watching, and was richly rewarded for it. Once the first argument between characters begins, the film reveals itself as a deeply psychological film as characters each reckon with their own inner pains and struggles. The noblewoman must decide whether to marry a man she despises to save herself from financial ruin; her eldest son and his wife feel embarrassed over their own social privilege and concoct plans to help the needy; her lover, a local schoolteacher, unexpectedly reunited with his first and only great love, is torn between her and the noblewoman while despising his own naïve wife; another son neglects his duty as the area’s only doctor to continue partying; and the classist neighboring nobleman rants about the common people he despises. The focus slowly shifts from the family and friends to the teacher over the course of the day, who tells of his broken heart in the third person while pretending it was a story he read, and later on has a breakdown over his own mediocrity and inability to make something with his life. The film goes from shallow to deep as it progresses, growing in emotional complexity until it reaches its moving ending. With such types of character dramas, how good they are depends on the acting, and in this film the acting is phenomenal. Although the film requires patience for the first twenty minutes, it’s a richly rewarding film for those who can stay till the end.
The film is on YouTube, you can watch it here.
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Sovyet Sinemasından Western çıkar mı?
Sovyet sineması, Western'leriyle bilinmez. Fakat, bu kadar uzun erimli ve bazı sıkıntılar hariç bu kadar önemli bir kültürel okulun Western'e müdahale etmemiş olması düşünülemez. Mikhalkov'un bu filmi tam da onu yapıyor.
Sovyet sineması, kabaca Potemkin Zırhlısı’yla başlar, Dziga Vertov’la devam eder, Tarkovsky’le yeni dalgaya cevap verir -aynı dalga boyunda değildir lâkin cevap- ve Sovyetler’in çöküşüyle biter. Peki, bu kadar uzun erimli ve bazı sıkıntılar hariç bu kadar verimli bir sinemanın 1970’lerde patlayan Sergio Leone’yle tepe noktasına ulaşan, çocukluğumun efsanesi İyi, Kötü ve Çirkin’e cevap vermemiş…
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