Thread: Reviews and discussions of Russian language films

Обитаемый остров" aka "The Inhabited Island".

(I couldn't resist watching this film first in my Russian movie exposé --- since I love Sci-fi...)

TRAILER
[video:kpjp5gbd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojw7I016Puw[/video:kpjp5gbd]

My Review and Reactions:

Gosh that must have been an expensive film! Lots of extras (people), sophisticated interiors and dramatic special effects...

I liked the "steam punk" theme of the equipment and outfits.. Very cool. But the plot was quite hard to understand!

It didn't help that the subtitles were really bad. I got them online, and these were the only subs I could find. They were full of spelling, grammar and vocabulary errors, unfortunately. So I had to keep stopping the film because the subs did not help me to understand what was being said.

Towards the final quarter of the film I finally began to realise the purpose for the "towers" and the role of the "Degenerates" and the "Unknown Fathers". I actually still don't understand exactly how the dictatorship was organised and I think that was part of the message of the plot. I didn't understand why Maksim kept saying that the sky was a dome when it looked like a normal sky. I think this might be a girl thing though - I often don't get the full plot in action films because the shooting and violence is so distracting...

The film sure used parts of every scary dictatorship that's ever existed to put together a truly spooky society to base the plot in...

As I understood the plot, the citizens still supported the dictatorship because of the power of suggestion that the dictators had over the population.

The hero (Maksim) looked like a California surfer dude and I didn't particularly like the performance of the actor apart from the fact that he is very good looking. But I thought his friend Guy was a better actor..

Or perhaps his super naive, slightly cheesy personality (or lack thereof) was actually part of the story?

The departure of Maksim in the red tank towards unknown lands was classy though, and I thought it was a pretty good way of ending the film.
I WILL watch the second part despite my slight reservations about the first one.

I think that for me, a lot of this film might have been "lost in translation" unfortunately.. If anybody knows of better subs, please let me know!

I'd love to hear what others thought who have seen this film?

The Cranes are Flying / Летят журавли (1957)


I just have to add "The Cranes are Flying" (Летят журавли) to this thread.
I will not say anything about the complex story, but to summarise:

This is a war movie for women, and a very, very good one.

I never would have thought that I'd love a black/white 1950s Soviet war movie... but I did!

As you can see from the cover below, it is a Palm d'Or winner.





Incidentally everyone speaks very clearly and the subtitles are good.

One more comment: Someone below... say, 20.. is unlikely to appreciate this; it requires a bit of life experience....

Very touching and very well filmed. I think it's a masterpiece.