Rating: 
Summary: Trapped in Stalinist nightmare
Review: I saw this movie at a cinema in Southern California, surrounded by elderly Russian immigrants. It had such an emotional impact that at least one lady was overwhelmed and required physical assistance leaving the theatre when it ended. "East-West" is a stunningly open Russian/French-produced film about life in post-war USSR. Although the characters are composites, the story is based on cruel historical events. When Stalin "welcomes back" all expatriated Russians, Alexei is overjoyed to leave his long self-exile in France and sail to his beloved homeland. Aboard ship, he and his fellow passengers celebrate their imagined homecoming to the glorious "Workers' Paradise". None of them has any idea of the brutal changes which have occurred under "Uncle Joe's" regime. Only betrayal awaits them. Upon the instant of their arrival, they are thrust into a nightmare of totalitarianism from which there is seemingly no escape. Many of the returning countrymen are arrested or executed as "traitors of the state". Alexei, as a physician, is considered valuable and spared, although his French wife comes under immediate suspicion and surveillance. How their sudden culture shock, loss of human rights, miserable living conditions, persecution, and bleak future inexoribly erode their marriage is heart-breaking. The film would be overwhelmingly depressing, but love, hope, heroism, and sacrifice can prevail even under the iron hand of Stalin. I highly recommend this video. Although unflinchingly honest about the Soviet system, it treats the long-suffering Russian people with sensitivity and compassion.
Rating:
Summary: Cold War Memory
Review: I was intrigued by one cast member in this film, which lead me to buy it. I have always been a fan of Catherine Deneuve, although she does not have a starring role in this dark film. I was pleasantly surprised at just how good this movie was. It had drama, it had suspense and best of all it had a good, but unexpecected ending. I highly recommend this film for anyone that is a fan of French Cinema. This film was directed by the same person that did "Indochine", another film that Madame Deneuve starred in.
Rating: 
Summary: great story
Review: I was surprised at how good this movie was given Leonard Maltin's dreadful review of it...but then he didn't like "Indochine" either, Wargnier's previous great movie. The accusation that the plot is "soap opera" is totally specious and Maltin is completely jaded. The acting here is absolutely outstanding with Sandrine Bonnaire giving a sterling performance, and she does not look glamorous for most of it! The other actors, like Oleg Mechikov...but also even the minor roles, are terrific and the story is riveting. It's hilarious that a previous (anonymous) reviewer thought the story "eurocentric" and that all the Russians appear bad. This is completely inaccurate, and is he/she denying that Stalin's Russia was pretty much like this? After all he is the greatest murderer in history! Yes, Russia certainly "saved the world from Nazism"...but their own society had behaved in an equivalently atrocious manner to their citizens.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent depiction of 1950s Soviet Union life.
Review: I've never seen a movie with a more accurate depiction of life in the USSR from late-40s to early-50s. What people had to live with psychologically far outweighed anything physical for the average person. Buy this film to understand.
Rating:
Summary: Post-war Brilliant
Review: If purely seen as a period piece, this film is extraordinary. The very real prospects of returning to Kiev in 1946 are shown masterfully in this volume. The acting is convincing and the story line works. The exterior shots blend perfectly with the feel of the film, I'd highly recommend this to anyone acquainted with European cinema or for cold war buffs.
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Summary: Simple story, experienced by thousands
Review: In 1946, Stalin invited all russians living abroad to return to the Soviet Union in order to "rebuild" their country. Among others, the young doctor Alexei (Oleg Menchikov) and his french wife Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire) succomb to this siren-song. In their credulity they quickly become victims of Stalins persecution complex. The first thing they see when they leave the ship in Odessa, is a father separated from his son, the son executed on the spot. In Stalins eyes 90% of all persons married to russians are agents for the CIA, enemies of the people. And she, the french woman, is no exception for the authorities. They take her passport, interrogations and beatings follow.Her husband follows the party line and works his way up. Soon he becomes a "trusted" member of the party. But Marie cannot live in this atmosphere of permanent surveillance, where she has to watch every word and people "disappear". The couple gets a new subtenant, the young Sacha (Sergei Bodrov Jr.) whose grandmother was executed as "traitor" because she was too friendly to Marie. More and more Marie suspects that her husband has in reality no intention to leave the country and return to France, as he promised her. She implores a french actress, Gabrielle (Catherine Deneuve), on tour in the Soviet Union to help her. When Marie discovers that Alexei has a liaison with a neighbor, Olga, she starts an affair with Sacha. Her hope is, that, as member of the national swimming team, Sacha, will be able to defect to the west and help her too... You may think that this film fulfills every stereotype about life in the Soviet Union. Shabby factories, where the works managers show no consideration for the health of their workers, torture, labor camps, friends who spy on each other (Alexei:"Have you read this letter?" Olga: "No, it's in french." Alexei: "In my youth I learned that one is not supposed to read other people's letters." Olga:"We must have had different childhoods:"). Yes, it may look like a cliche, only: everything really happened. This is a true story, filmed on the original places in France, the Ukraine and Bulgaria. Many will find this slow and depressing film a chore to sit through, but it depicts a time that never should be forgotten. There really was a KGB, there really were athletes who defected to the west, and , believe it or not, there were even prominent persons like Gabrielle who committed themselves to freedom - and succeeded. Catherine Deneuve has only a brief role, but Sandrine Bonnaire is excellent, honest and straightforward. But it's her partner, Oleg Menchikov who really shines in this film with an incredible performance. When the viewer has just reached the conclusion that he cannot be trusted he comes up with a sacrifice so immense it seems barely believable - and it's all true! If you think you can do without glamour, special effects and super-heroes Hollywood-style for once, you will be richly rewarded with a gripping story, first-rate performances and the feeling that you have seen something worthy,
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Summary: What happens when idealists try to build a better world
Review: In the current climate, on college campuses at any rate, of anti-anti-communism, it is refreshing to see a film that deals honestly with Soviet Communism. Like their cousins the Nazis, communists believed that if you smash culture (no more dead white males, anyone?) and society (family, courtesy, chivalry, faith) to bits and scrap archaic notions like truth and respect for human dignity you can build Utopia. The death toll of the various communist societies totaled something on the order of a tenth of a billion people. The cost to the human spirit of those forced to live under this horrid system is beyond calculation. By focussing on the tale of a French woman whose idiot husband believed the lies of the Soviet government and transported her and her child into this hell, we feel the full impact of the assault. The kind old Russian lady who is dragged off by the secret police after she is overheard speaking French and is next seen in her coffin makes the point of what happens in such a system when individuals deviate, however slightly, from mandated norms of political correctness.
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Summary: Strength, and courage
Review: It's 1946, and Josef Stalin opens the Soviets borders to all Russian expatriates who've left since 1917, and who might wish to return to rebuild the Motherland in a burst of patriotic fervor. Alexei, a Russian practicing medicine in France, decides to accept the offer, and is accompanied by his trusting Parisian wife, Marie, and their son, Sergei. There's singing and goodwill aboard the ship bound for Odessa, but ... uh-oh ... those aren't beribboned girls bearing flowers on the quay when the ship docks. Those are soldiers and commissars, and the expats are divided ... some to the left, some to the right ... to be subsequently interrogated, charged as imperialist spies, or even shot. Welcome home to Mother Russia, comrades! Alexei and his family are transported to Kiev, where they live in a crowded collective tenement with thin walls and friendly, but watchful, locals. (The aging and sympathetic babushka serving as house supervisor is soon hauled off by local police muscle for speaking French to Marie. So much for a carefree atmosphere.) Sergei is assigned to a local factory to look after the workers' health. Marie irons shirts for the Soviet Army Chorus, Band and Dance Ensemble. Thus begins a decade-long dream of escape back to France. EAST-WEST stars Oleg Menchikov as Alexei, who, being Russian, realizes the only way to remedy his poor choice of family outings is to work surreptitiously and slowly within the system. Marie, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, being more impatient and less subtle, is constantly rocking the boat with her self-centered breakout schemes. Both Oleg and Sandrine are wonderful in their respective parts, as are Serguei Bodrov, Jr. and Catherine Deneuve as the Russian swimmer Sacha and left-wing French actress Gabrielle respectively, who are the family's tenuous links to the West. And the scruffy KGB heavy, Pirogev, is particularly poisonous. EAST-WEST is a powerful look at the aftermath of a bad career decision, and the moral compromises, personal betrayals, and emotional traumas that accompany the effort to set things right again. But, there are also love, devotion, courage, and self-sacrifice. At the beginning of the film, as Alexei and his family take dubious survey of their new Kiev residence, Marie asks Sergei, "What does a traveler need?" "Strength, and courage."
Rating:
Summary: The Price of Freedom
Review: Like The Thief (1997), which was also nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar, Regis Wargnier's East-West is a turbulent romance set against the political backdrop of post-World War II Russia. But instead of a man, a woman and a child, the story revolves around a man, a woman, a child - and another man. Shortly after the war, Alexei (Oleg Menshikov from Prisoner of the Mountains), his wife Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire) and their son travel to Russia from France to make a new life for themselves. But they quickly find that the situation in Alexei's homeland isn't quite as advertised and that they can't leave. Sacha (Sergie Bodrov, Jr. from Prisoner of the Mountains and Brother) is a young athlete who lives in the same overcrowded apartment complex. Like Marie, he longs to escape, while Alexei appears to have decided to make the best out of an awful situation. Inevitably, Marie and Alexei grow apart as Sacha and Marie grow close, but one of the three is harboring a secret that won't be revealed until the end. The film does double-time as a thriller in that, at any time, any of these characters could be imprisoned or killed -- including French actress, Gabrielle (Catherine Deneuve, star of Wargnier's Oscar winning Indochine). She befriends Marie during a tour of Russia and offers to help her and Sacha make their getaway. At its worst, East-West threatens to strain one's credibility, but Wargnier's assured direction and the sympathetic performances he elicits from his cast make for a believable and compelling drama. Although not an epic on the scale of Doctor Zhivago, Wargnier takes a more intimate approach to somewhat similar subject matter and, arguably, offers the superior bittersweet conclusion.
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.
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