Rating: 
Summary: A snapshot of Soviet Union life during the worst of times
Review: Nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 as Best Foreign Film, this is a rather bleak story of a couple caught in the winds of Stalinism. The year is 1946. He's a Russian doctor and happily married to a French wife. They've been living in France. But now they learn that Stalin has invited all Russian émigrés to come back to the great Soviet Union. They decide to go with their young son.From the moment they set foot in Russia, it's horror all the way. They've been tricked. Most of the émigrés are executed. But the doctor and his family are spared because his profession is essential to the country. They are forced to live as other Russians do now - in a small apartment with four other families. They are constantly watched. And the French wife is treated suspiciously because she is a foreigner. Life is hard, not only because some basic necessities are no longer there, but mostly because of the lack of privacy and the constant harassment. There are strains on their marriage. They argue. They make up. They both get involved romantically with others. Life goes on. Sandrine Bonnaire is cast as the wife. Oleg Menchikov is the husband. And Catherine Deneuve is cast as a traveling French actress who does what she can to help the couple. Years pass. A young swimmer escapes the Soviet Union with the wife's help. Punishment follows. The audience sees the physical changes in the couple, a spirit of resignation. But yet there is still hope to get out. How this all plays out keeps the tension high as we follow the couple over a lifetime. It's all very sad. And very interesting. I enjoyed the snapshot of life in the Soviet Union because I had never seen it depicted so clearly before. And the acting and cinematography was consistently good. The screenplay held it all together and I was never bored. The DVD didn't have extra features but the transfer was good and the subtitles in French and Russian easy to read. I felt like I somehow became a fly on the wall of this couple's home. It was not a pleasant experience. I loved this film but it certainly isn't for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best films I've ever seen
Review: Regis Wargnier (who also directed the marvelous "Indochine") gives us a wrenching story of a man who returns to the post-war Soviet Union with his French wife and son, and finds himself in the midst of a Stalinist nightmare. There is much pathos to the tale, but it's also a heart-pounding thriller at times. I haven't been so caught up in a film in many years. The cinematography (Laurent Daillant) is terrific and the score (Patrick Doyle) gorgeous. The cast, down to the last bit player is exceptional. Sandrine Bonnaire and Serguei Bodrov Jr. are absolutely superb, and Oleg Menchikov ! He was fabulous in "Prisoner of the Mountains" and "Burnt by the Sun", but here gives a subtle, many layered portrait of a man trapped by fate...perhaps his best and most astounding performance of all. A complex story that spans a decade, the editing is so good that the pieces fit seamlessly and the pacing flows...however, it's a film that should be seen more than once, as a lot falls into place on subsequent viewings. This is one I'm glad I own...for its glimpse into a period of history, its brilliant performances, and the sheer beauty of what a film can be when at its best. It's about freedom, the will to survive, and most of all, about a man's love that goes beyond his own needs.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best films I've ever seen
Review: Regis Wargnier (who also directed the marvelous "Indochine") gives us a wrenching story of a man who returns to the post-war Soviet Union with his French wife and son, and finds himself in the midst of a Stalinist nightmare. There is much pathos to the tale, but it's also a heart-pounding thriller at times. I haven't been so caught up in a film in many years. The cinematography (Laurent Daillant) is terrific and the score (Patrick Doyle) gorgeous. The cast, down to the last bit player is exceptional. Sandrine Bonnaire and Serguei Bodrov Jr. are absolutely superb, and Oleg Menchikov ! He was fabulous in "Prisoner of the Mountains" and "Burnt by the Sun", but here gives a subtle, many layered portrait of a man trapped by fate...perhaps his best and most astounding performance of all. A complex story that spans a decade, the editing is so good that the pieces fit seamlessly and the pacing flows...however, it's a film that should be seen more than once, as a lot falls into place on subsequent viewings. This is one I'm glad I own...for its glimpse into a period of history, its brilliant performances, and the sheer beauty of what a film can be when at its best. It's about freedom, the will to survive, and most of all, about a man's love that goes beyond his own needs.
Rating: 
Summary: A textbook example of eurocentrism
Review: The movie is a classic example of eurocentrism and rusophobia. The movie is racist and plainly insulting to every Russian who is not a rusophobe him/herself, which was definitely intended. Russians in the movie are pictured as brainless subhumans, like they were for centuries presented by entire spectum of Western media and politicians ranging from Engels to Hitler. The only "real" human beings in the movie are a French woman and those Russians who can think of nothing else in this world but leaving for the West. The typical ahistoricism is evident in every bit of the film. If we make an honest effort to remember the historical context we'll have to keep in mind what was going on in the West at the moment. The "Hollywood 10" in America, when 10 Hollywood producers, artists, scenarists were imprisoned for alleged sympathy to communists and baned from movie industry, just few years earlier France was a part of Hitler's empire and among the half million western POWs captured in Russia who were not nationals of Germany and its allies quite a few were French volonteers fighting to push Europe further East. These fans of the Karl the Great were still held in the camps fixing what the've destroyed in Russia, while Russians captured by the Germans were coming back home frome France where they were forced into slave labor at French factories. American planners were busy developing a plan "Pincher" - 50 atomic bombs for 20 cities of the "nation of widows and handicapped". The freedom loving France was slaughtering Vietnameese and the rivers of blood in Algeria was just a bit ahead.
On the other hand, the death penalty was abolished in Russia in 1946, so all the claims of executions made in the movie are false. All the KGB archieves are available to the researches now and the cheap pdopaganda based on the blatant and scandalous errors and misconduct is hard to excuse.
The issue of sudden disappearance of people might be quite illuminaring by the fate of an actor Sergei Bodrov Jr. who played Sasha in the movie. He was burried alive by an avalanche in a tunnel in the Caucasus mountains. With destruction of the USSR the observation of the snow mass was ceased, so the disaster was imminent. When it happened no rescuers and equipment was available to save the people. That is the real "sudden disappearance of people" not that annoying Cold War propaganda thing. The mortality doubled in Russia in the past 12 years due mostly to suicide, accidents, poisoning by bad food and murders. But who cares about these subhuman Russians? It looks like the authors of the movie were greatly offended by the fact that the non-western people defeated the Europe's push to the East in the WWII and created a superpower capable of protecting its people against natural and man made disasters, that a boy whose father was killed and sisters enslaved by German occupants became the first man in the space. What is worse those western intellectuals still can not forgive Russians that "sin" and still splash dirt at the country and the people that saved the world from Nazism. Will that Cold War ever be over? Nothing nearly as racist and xenophobic towards the West was ever produced in the USSR.
Rating:
Summary: This film took my breath away
Review: The story of one family's sacrifices for one another makes you value that which so many of us take for granted. Not only is this film an excellent recreation of life in Post WWII Russia, but it also has you cheering on the characters as you follow the story of Alexei, a Russian emmigrant who fled Russia only to return many years later with his family following the end of the second World War, Marie, his French wife, and their son. I appreciated how the film realistically showed that families weren't perfect, and that families did not necessarily mean blood relations, but instead those you loved and cared for. Catherine Deneuve is as strong as ever as she places an actress who tries to help Alexei and Marie escape the horrors they find in Russia. This film was not suprisingly nominated for Best Foreign Film 1999. For French speakers, it's easy to follow, despite the captions, and exciting to watch when you realize how much of the language you can grasp and understand. At least, it was for me. If you want a deeply moving film, then this is the one for you.
Rating:
Summary: An emotional, beautiful story of love, and deception.
Review: This beautiful movie is about a couple and their child's experience living in and trying to escape from Stalinist Russia. The husband (Alexei, played by Oleg Menshikov) is Russian, and his wife Marie is French. When the Soviet Union decides to call back its emigrees, they return to Russia with their little child, As soon as they return, they realize that it is not as they had thought it would be. They are immediately interogated, terrorized, and threatened by the state. In the poverty of Kiev, they befriend Sasha (Sergei Bodrov Jr.), a swimmer, who is full of potential, and who wants out of Russia too. As the story progresses, they realize that they have a chance to escape... The ensueing drama is intense, and great sacrifices are made... Suspenseful, and emotional, this movie is a must see. The Russian background is beautiful, the acting superb, and the story touching. A must see for anyone who appreciates foreign films.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, nostalgia...
Review: This is what my country does to its people: it tortures them, kills, deprives them of most basic human rights, violates them - and all the while immigrants cannot forget their homeland. That is the basic premise of the movie: immigrants returning to the Soviet Union to live in what they believe in now a changed country. Alas, change is apparent, but that isn't the kind of change they were looking for. Years and years of struggle, inability to change their life or get out of the country once they were allowed in - you don't want to try it yourself, but watching this movie helps you realize how many things you take for granted on a daily basis.
Rating: 
Summary: Tale of nonsense
Review: This movie deals with the complex issue of postwar repatriation of immigrants from France to Russia with a 'healthy' charge of ignorance. All stalinist nightmares for some reason affect mainly a 'poor French woman' and she suffers at length and endlessly through the movie. Brilliant actor Menshikov (Prisoner of the Mountains, Burnt by the Sun), rising star Bodrov (Brother, Brother 2) and episodic appearance by Catherine Deneuve can not save this cold-war style propaganda flick. Even a potentially strong theme of sacrifice made by the Menshikov's character is lost in the incoherent fable. The result is a farce. See it for curious historic bloopers and senseless dialogues.
Rating:
Summary: Best movie I've ever seen
Review: This movie reflects the situation in a former Soviet Union so well, so acurate!!!I think everyone who is interested in understanding the history of that country should watch it. Wery good movie. Much more than I expected from it!!!Worth the money I pay for it.
Rating:
Summary: Love patiently works to overcome utopian idiocy
Review: This movie which is set back at the time of Stalinist insanity within the Soviet Union, is the story of a man, going back to the "motherland", with his family, to serve to build a good society. The realities of Stalinist paranoia and brutality quickly destroy any hope of redeeming the choice this family made. The man, far from being an idiot, loves his wife and child more than his own life and asperations. He seeks to find a way, to remove his family from this tragically sick, insane environment. It is a tragic story of an enduring love which overcomes the delusionary ideologies that human beings can be managed and controlled like some "resource." It is truly poetic in form, cinematography and story. A must see for anyone interested in something more than just the standard fare of the movies. It reminds me of the recent "Cry the Beloved Country."
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