The White Sun of the Desert

The White Sun of the Desert 1969

7.20

The setting is the east shore of the Caspian Sea (today's Turkmenistan) where the Red Army soldier Fyodor Sukhov has been fighting the Civil War in Russian Asia for a number of years. After being hospitalised and then demobbed, he sets off home to join his wife, only to be caught up in a desert fight between a Red Army cavalry unit and Basmachi guerrillas. The cavalry unit commander, Rahimov, "convinces" Sukhov to help, temporarily, with the protection of abandoned women of the Basmachi guerrilla leader Abdullah's harem. Leaving a young Red Army soldier, Petrukha, to assist Sukhov with the task, Rahimov and his cavalry unit set out to pursue fleeing Abdullah.Sukhov and women from Abdullah's harem return to a nearby shore town. Soon, looking for a seaway across the border, Abdullah and his gang come to the same town...

1969

Mournful Unconcern

Mournful Unconcern 1987

4.60

The action in this lavishly produced film takes place at an oddly ark-shaped mansion during World War I, and in spirit (although not in story) it reflects the play which inspired it, the ferociously antiwar Heartbreak House by George Bernard Shaw. A large group of family and friends have gathered at this country house to dance, drink, and converse. Their conversation, in particular, is adorned with erudite literary references and quotations. Despite their apparent refinement, their preoccupations are simple: sex and violence. Disquieting images break the tranquility of the vacationers' inappropriate idyll: some of these include documentary footage of starving African children, images (both real and re-enacted) of George Bernard Shaw going about his daily life, and a corpse coming to life on an autopsy table, only to cheapen that miracle by scolding a group of women. The music used in the film ironically points to its disturbing message and is uniformly anachronistic.

1987

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 1

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Part 1 1981

7.80

The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1981 Soviet film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was the third installment in the TV series about adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. A potent streak of humour ran through the film as concerns references to traditional British customs and stereotypes, ensuring the film's popularity with several generations of Russophone viewers. Other features of this best entry in the series include excellent exterior shots which closely match the novel's setting in the Dartmoor marshland, as well as an all-star cast: in addition to the famous Livanov -Solomin duo as Holmes and Watson, the film stars the internationally acclaimed actor/director Nikita Mikhalkov as Sir Henry Baskerville and the Russian movie legend Oleg Yankovsky as the villain Stapleton.

1981

Dead Man's Letters

Dead Man's Letters 1986

6.89

In a world after the nuclear apocalypse a scholar helps a small group of children and adults survive, staying with them in the basement of the former museum of history. In his mind he writes letters to his son — though it is obvious that they will never be read.

1986

The Headless Rider

The Headless Rider 1973

5.20

The film takes place in 1850, Texas, United States. Louise, daughter of the wealthy plantation owner Poindexter, master of the hacienda Casa del Corvo, falls in love with a poor mustanger Maurice Gerald. The night their secret rendezvous happens, her brother Henry disappears. Suspicion in murder falls on Gerald, who was found covered in blood, with signs of struggle on the body and on Henry's cloak. One more minute, and an angry crowd would have Gerald lynched, but then the mysterious Headless Horseman appears...

1973

Chapayev

Chapayev 1934

6.10

An account of the peasant turned mythical military hero Vasily Chapayev, charting his campaign in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.

1934

Twenty Days Without War

Twenty Days Without War 1976

6.89

War correspondent Lopatin takes a 20-day-leave from his hard work at the front in 1942. He travels to faraway Tashkent to meet the family of the killed soldier and visit the film set of the screen adaptation of his war-time stories. Lopatin also manages to walk the streets of Tashkent, take part in a factory workers' meeting and have a short-lived love affair. Although with no bombings and fighting, the city dwellers breathe the atmosphere of the ongoing war.

1976

Heart of a Dog

Heart of a Dog 1988

7.90

Old Prof. Preobrazhensky and his young colleague Dr. Bormental inserted the human's hypophysis into a dog's brain. A couple of weeks later, the dog became "human looking". The main question is "Is anybody who is looking like a man, A REAL MAN?"

1988

Hamlet

Hamlet 1964

7.22

Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.

1964

Taxi Blues

Taxi Blues 1990

6.30

Ivan is old Russia: thick, dour, hard-working, often brutish; he misses Communism. He drives a taxi and one night meets Alexi, a new Russian, a musician, an alcoholic, irresponsible. Alexi stiffs Ivan for the fare, so Ivan tracks him down and a love-hate relationship ensues. When Alexi lets the bath water run over in Ivan's flat and Ivan must pay 500 rubles for repairs, he tries to force Alexi into day labor to repay him. It's hopeless. Then, suddenly, Alexi is discovered, goes on a jazz tour of America, becomes a celebrity, and returns in triumph. Ivan longs to renew the friendship, and it looks as if he may get what he wants.

1990

Days of Eclipse

Days of Eclipse 1988

5.94

This bleak late soviet-era drama follows the career of Malyanov, a young medical school graduate who has been sent to work in Turkmenia. Here he runs into a hodge-podge of people of differing ethnicities, all of them victims of the government's earlier mania for relocating and eliminating whole ethnic groups and classes of people. These desperately unhappy people are unable to find any pleasure in this diverse companionship, but instead are antagonistic to it, and often resort to desperate measures in their doomed attempts to ease their pain.

1988

King Lear

King Lear 1970

6.70

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.

1970

The Lark

The Lark 1964

5.67

Russian prisoners of war commandeer a tank and lead the Nazis on a cross-country chase in this World War II adventure drama. The Russians use their own tanks so the Nazis can use them as target practice to test a new anti-tank weapon. Knowing that death is near, the brave Russians run amok and tear down German monuments before heading out to a field where female slave laborers are working.

1964

The Brave Seven

The Brave Seven 1936

4.30

Six polar explorers arrives to a remote island in Arctic for a year-long scientific expedition. When their ship departs, they unpack only to find a young stowaway, who romanticized Arctic heroes, and tried to join them on multiple occasions finally succeeding. That's how six became seven. Life of polar explorers is tough, and full of danger. During one year they are largely isolated from the mainland, and should survive using their resourcefulness, smarts, knowledge, and existing supplies with occasional unreliable radio communications. The Seven are resilient, cheerful, they forged a true friendship. Now they are ready to face the unforgiving Arctic.

1936

Trust

Trust 1976

3.50

Directed by Edvin Laine and Viktor Tregubovich, Trust (1976) is a Finnish-Soviet historical drama film that follows the relations between Finland and the Soviet Union. In December 1917, the Finnish delegation, composed of Chairman of the Senate Finance Department P.E. Svinhufvud (Vilho Siivola), Senator Carl Enckell (Yrjö Tähtelä) and State Secretary Gustaf Idman (Yrjö Paulo) arrive in St. Petersburg to meet V.I. Lenin (Kirill Lavrov) to gain recognition for the country's independence.

1976

The Blue Bird

The Blue Bird 1976

5.20

A pair of peasant children, Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl, are led on a magical quest for the fabulous Blue Bird of Happiness by the Fairy Berylune. On their journey, they are accompanied by the humanized presences of a Dog, a Cat, Light, Fire, Bread, and other entities.

1976

Amphibian Man

Amphibian Man 1962

6.90

People living at a seashore town are frightened by reports of an unknown creature called "the sea devil". Nobody knows what it is, but it's really the son of doctor Salvator. The doctor performed surgery on his son and now young Ichtiander can live under water. This gives him certain advantages, but also creates a lot of problems.

1962

A Big Family

A Big Family 1954

5.90

Drama based on the novel by Vsevolod Kochetov “The Zhurbin Family”. The characters of the picture are a large family of hereditary shipbuilders. Three generations of the Zhurbin live under one roof: grandfather Matvei, his son Ilya, three sons of Ilya — Aleksei, Anton and Viktor. In a short time, representatives of the fourth generation are born. The share of the youngest son of Aleksei fall the most severe life tests. The background for family conflicts is the reorganization of production. All Zhurbin's have to change their profession to move on.

1954