Quote Originally Posted by rockzmom
No, I beg of you, write more once you have calmed down and are no longer stabbing pins in your Voodoo Doll of me.
Please don't react so. If I seemed rude to you, it could be so because of my bad English. I didn't mean to write anything bad about you as a viewer (I feel it's another clumsy sentence...), and I thought you knew that.

Because even for a short story such as this one, if a film does not entertain, even on some miniscule level, then no one would finance the production of it and it would not be made and then no one would ever see it.
Please remember that the film we're discussing was shot in the Soviet time, and at that time the government financed cinema, and it financed the production of a lot of films that did not entertain, believe me

I think there are more than one meaning for the word "entertain"... As well as for the verb "to like". What I mean... well, I think you understand what I meant when I wrote "entertain", don't you? You see, for example, there is a documentary "Обыкновенный фашизм", a great post-war film about fascism and nazism in which a famous Soviet director Михаил Ромм expressed his own view on it, and it's full of terrible details. Well, what I mean, is that one can't say that he likes this film. "I was shaken by this film" seems more appropriate...
The same about "to entertain". Probably it's not the same as the Russian verb "развлекать". Maybe it's "to amuse", "to divert"? In Russian, "развлекать" means something light, not serious, light-headed, frivolous; something you can enjoy eating icecream or chips.

Also... Please believe me and please don't feel hurt, but I can assure you that the language used in this movie is extremely important, and unfortunately, many nuances of what heroes say is just lost in translation. Also intonation means so much in it! How she pronounces, "My husband is.... a lackey..."!
As for the plot... I don't know why you thought it was an "old fashion romance". But believe me, it's a very bad description for this film.
I can tell you, for example, that one the most important episodes is when Gurov is trying to start a conversation about his summer romance with an acquaintance, and this acquaintance says to him (completely missing Gurov's words): "You know, you were right: the flesh of sturgeon was stale". What do you think about that episode?
Chekhov wrote about banality and mustiness of life, and about impossibility to break out of it. The plot line is a romance, true. But the main is not about love.

As for your question about the rings - all orthodox believers wear them on the right hand, so it's a tradition in Russia.