Directed by:
Régis WargnierCinematography:
Laurent DaillandComposer:
Patrick DoyleCast:
Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menshikov, Catherine Deneuve, Sergey Bodrov Jr., Ruben Tapiero, Erwan Baynaud, Grigori Manoukov, Tatyana Dogileva, Богдан Ступка (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
When Stalin offers amnesty and a chance to rebuild the country to all exiled Russians in 1946, Alexei Golovine answers the call and returns to his native country from France with his French wife Marie and son Serioja. As soon as they arrive in Odessa, they are faced with an awful reality. Many of their companions are deported or executed. Alexei and his family are safe, but only because as a young doctor, the authorities know they might need him. (Cannes Film Festival)
(more)Reviews (2)
Naïvety in the film stinks from miles away. I don't know what it was like for Oleg Menšikov to shoot this film, when he actually shoots about how his country, with its own psychology, destroys one Russian after another with the arrival of the communists. That return, that was really like a fairy tale, like Ivan went to the gulag for Nastěnka and on the way he met, greeted Stalin... and never made it there. Very harsh and uncompromising. In addition, the story is told from a period of several years, where opinions and thoughts change diversely and overall it evokes that terrible time quite nicely, which emerged in the Soviet Union after 1946.
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A professionally filmed melodrama that vividly illustrates the crazy circumstances in Stalinist Russia of the 1940s and 1950s to today's audience. Sandrine Bonnaire and Oleg Menshikov rank highly on my personal actor's scale and they definitely did not disappoint me. Despite its attractive subject matter and strong story, the film has something either excessive or lacking. Despite indisputable festival ambitions, or perhaps because of them, the result feels somewhat artificial and calculated. This is a common case with international co-productions, which involve a lot of compromises. Overall impression: 65%.
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