sonechka

the letterboxd description puts it so harshly lol. it was lighter than that -- more melancholic than sad -- and I thought the scenes with lena's friends were cute. but I can agree that her boyfriend is useless. it was satisfying when she finally rejected his proposal, and so eloquently too: I'll probably never be able to explain to her, why, despite all your wonderful qualities, I won't marry you, volodya. (hover to view spoilers)

the set is so fun I cringed just as much as anikeyeva (my favourite) when they started taking the animals as pillows. I can hear the zipping of the big moving fish even now... I think the ending works because the viewer forgets about the sleeping man just as well (at least I did); it was a relief because Ryazanov writes his characters so endearingly that I couldn't wish for even the most irritating ones to have lost their garage. (hover to view spoilers) and I love this poster.

maybe I don't know how to have fun but I almost hated this as much as the white sun of the desert. I think I just don't understand action movies, I get bored of feeling impressed after 5 minutes. I also can't agree with the child soldier thing.

I was more invested in the romance than really warranted... what's refreshing about soviet cinema is there is no moral imperative to make a lazy, both-sides-bad, forgiveness narrative that disguises itself as "nuance." people are quick to denounce anything soviet as propaganda but it is no where near as obnoxious as that produced by the united states.

mostly uninteresting after Yuri Bogatyryov disappeared/when oblomov got out of bed. Except for the theatrics at the one point where olga and oblomov met in the night, that woke me up. definitely revived my interest in reading the book; I started it years ago and never finished.

I think I have to have lived in the 30's to understand sergei eisenstein movies.

westerns (or easterns) never really appealed to me but Mikhalkov has too much fun stylistically here that I loved it, even when the plot was hard to follow. this is one shot I particularly liked. the soundtrack is also memorable. and I am very fond of Yuri Bogatyryov...

andrei roublev is of a larger scale than tarkovsky's other movies, yet a special intimacy is maintained with its characters unlike the director's characteristic alienation. part one alone made the strongest impression on me: the man on the balloon, the skomorkh, the pagan ritual, the ants and theophanes' bloated feet... andrei roublev closely competes with mirror as my favourite tarkovsky movie.

though it's an earlier work of tarkovsky's, ivan's childhood contains some of his most lasting imagery, like the shots of ivan and his mother at the water well, as well as the photo of ivan at the end.

soo fun daneliya is so fun. I would never willingly watch comedies until my addiction to mosfilm... the soundtrack plays in my head all the time. also need this poster.

it was alright. I think after come and see and the ascent (1977) no other war movie can live up to my expectations.

I wish men in real life could be as competent as thief george miloslavsky

I was curious how the monologue-dialogues of russian literature would translate to film (also wanted to see more of Mikhalkov after relatives). the performances were impressively balanced between theatrical and natural. like relatives, an argument scene made the greatest impression on me -- the one between the aristocrat and the bourg at the dinner table. the final scene of platonov trying to drown himself but accidentally jumping into the shallow end was also so funny; so satisfying to see him lose at everything... (hover to view spoilers)

this is what I meant about the reward of picking movies blindly in my the first teacher review. first thought the yelling would be obnoxious but the later mother/daughter argument scene became maybe one of my favourite movie scenes ever. what I like about soviet cinema is that most actors look like everyday people, and that woman characters are even allowed to be a little annoying without risking crucifixion!

I forget

I have a fondness for Daneliya but this one was too sweet for me

generic war movie

one of those frustrating situations where I can hear voices accusing me of "taking it too seriously" for daring to think a little bit. it is deeply cruel on 10 different levels to pretend to offer women liberation because you want to have sex with them, on top of the orientalism swearing that the white men are the progressive ones here; this is the kind of movie that reminds you that many male directors fail to even conceive of women existing in their audience. and it was really boring.

my first (and only, as I'm writing this) Akira Kurosawa movie. the scene where they get lost was so hard to watch. (hover to view spoilers) but it pays off when Kurosawa relaxes tension as well as he builds it, developing the cutest friendship between dersu and the captain.

people like this movie for the ending but I liked it until the ending. I think the monsters were too alien-like and I would've liked them to have been more demon-like. (hover to view spoilers)

russians do hamlet better

I first watched solaris in high school and hated it -- I was expecting sci-fi, not Tarkovsky. but when he later became a favourite director of mine, I owed it a rewatch. Tarkovsky takes the best advantage of the alienation/distance inherent to sci-fi, not only of the viewer but between characters to each other and their environment; each one on the ship seems entirely alone. especially with how it culminates into what is probably one of the greatest movie endings ever...

soviet comedy dares ask: what if a normal guy was mistaken for an evil guy

"indeed, animals, too, show that they are capable of such behavior when they are being hunted; they manage to put their pursuers off the scent by making a false start ... but an animal does not pretend to pretend. he does not make tracks whose deception lies in the fact that they will be taken as false, while being in fact true ones, ones, that is, that indicate his true trail. nor does an animal cover up its tracks, which would be tantamount to making itself the subject of the signifier" -- lacan (the subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the freudian unconscious)

3 stars for lyuba alone!

I forget everything about this (in writing a month later). but I remember I was entertained at least.

I chose to watch the first teacher at random from the mosfilm youtube channel and I've been chasing the feeling since of discovering good movies without having ever heard of them. Konchalovsky really well shows the failure of reform in face of structural issues; it's so frustrating to watch the collective defense of a rapist for the sake of tradition. this poster is also a favourite.

even the most elaborate sci-fi worldbuilding won't interest me as much as being left alone to guess at the logic of Tarkovsky's worlds. also, his movies have the best colour grading for trees...