There's something pretty touching about a film made three years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and looking back at one of its most harrowing periods, the Great Purge of the Stalin era. It was a time when an informer could get others sent away or killed because of something they had said casually in the past, or just as often, because the informer himself was being tortured or had a vendetta. It seems to be a film about a country trying to come to terms with that, and I can see why it resonated.
The man at the center of the film is a revered local leader and hero from the revolution, and seems to be an idealization of the perfect Russian man. Early on he runs out of his banya, jumps on a horse bareback, and rides out to help farmers whose crops are threatened by military maneuvers. He affectionately plays with his daughter, is amorous with his wife, and reacts to an old lover of hers turning up with hospitality and grace. He then shows incredible bravery and calmness when he's told he's been informed on, and we're 100% certain the accusations are baseless.
Complicating things is a love triangle, and it's almost as if the wife is a commodity representing the soul of the country - caught between a Bolshevik and a White Russian during the time of the Revolution, and between an upstanding comrade and a sneaky informant twenty years later.
The film has some beautiful scenes, such as the ones along the river or in a birch forest, and it evokes the gaiety of family life in their country dacha. It's a blessing to see these images because they run counter to those often portrayed of Soviet life in the 1930's, but to me that strength becomes a bit of weakness as well. The film runs too long for its story, and tonally it seemed a little off - the acting hammy, the characters a little too cute or buffoonish, and the light bubble special effect a bit cheesy. There's also a middle-aged servant who is regularly referred to as a virgin, has her butt swatted, and has her breasts groped, which is off-putting as well. Maybe the tone was necessary because the reality for this period was so brutal and heartbreaking, or maybe these characterizations are played up to evoke an idealized world which is then crushed by Stalin, whose image appears ominously even out in the lovely countryside. Regardless, for me it's worth seeing, but falls a little short of being great.
The man at the center of the film is a revered local leader and hero from the revolution, and seems to be an idealization of the perfect Russian man. Early on he runs out of his banya, jumps on a horse bareback, and rides out to help farmers whose crops are threatened by military maneuvers. He affectionately plays with his daughter, is amorous with his wife, and reacts to an old lover of hers turning up with hospitality and grace. He then shows incredible bravery and calmness when he's told he's been informed on, and we're 100% certain the accusations are baseless.
Complicating things is a love triangle, and it's almost as if the wife is a commodity representing the soul of the country - caught between a Bolshevik and a White Russian during the time of the Revolution, and between an upstanding comrade and a sneaky informant twenty years later.
The film has some beautiful scenes, such as the ones along the river or in a birch forest, and it evokes the gaiety of family life in their country dacha. It's a blessing to see these images because they run counter to those often portrayed of Soviet life in the 1930's, but to me that strength becomes a bit of weakness as well. The film runs too long for its story, and tonally it seemed a little off - the acting hammy, the characters a little too cute or buffoonish, and the light bubble special effect a bit cheesy. There's also a middle-aged servant who is regularly referred to as a virgin, has her butt swatted, and has her breasts groped, which is off-putting as well. Maybe the tone was necessary because the reality for this period was so brutal and heartbreaking, or maybe these characterizations are played up to evoke an idealized world which is then crushed by Stalin, whose image appears ominously even out in the lovely countryside. Regardless, for me it's worth seeing, but falls a little short of being great.