Alec B
Mostly impressed that, given the subject matter, this thing isn't just a parade of misery for its own sake.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/10/24
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PridePosterStudios
Woefully bleak for no good reason.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
06/20/24
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Audience Member
One of the best antiwar movies.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Audience Member
I have not given this five stars simply because it is a hard watch and tbh if I had known what it is like I probably would not have gone to see it. But if the evidence of a good film is one that stays with you, this is it. Everyone in the film is damaged by the War in different ways and everyone is searching for love to heal themselves. Iva seeks love from Masha, who can only find it in a child. Sasha also seeks love from Masha but he is naive. The other important character is Nikolai the Medical Director, like Iva a profoundly decent person trying to do his best in very difficult circumstances. This is definitely not to everyone's taste as among other things it js quite slow and long. And l have to say l found Masha much more interesting than Iva. A real survivor.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
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Audience Member
Two characters in the squalor and misery of post-war Leningrad communicate mostly by scowling and staring at the floor in each other’s presence, while awful, depressing things happen and they make additional awful life decisions. The painfully slow pacing may be intended to make the viewer feel the misery more immediately, and if so, it works.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/27/22
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Audience Member
Spoilers: Vasilia is so luminous yet war-ravaged, and pale Viktoria is so languidly genuine yet damaged by war. By the numbers, when the Germans ran a WWII siege of Leningrad that lasted 872 days, a million in the city died, most by starvation, as food was largely cut off. And many more fled, so that the city was largely depopulated. This is what is troubling these people, as they try to resume or rebuild lives, as wounded are still dying and the survivors may be worse off than the dead, psychologically as well as in coming by food, and electricity blackouts are common. Iya keeps freezing up, as these people say, going into minicatatonic episodes, and none seem to be shocked by it happening as they've seen it before -- what we'd attribute now to PTSD. One cost the young child his life, as Iya was caring for him yet inadvertently suffocated him. At her hospital job, she had a series of euthanasia jobs, as her doctor boss kept asking her to do it to those who no longer wanted to live. When the best thing you can do for someone is inject him out, it takes a toll on you. And when Masha, the soldier mother of the dead boy, returns, she finds her boy gone, and wants Iya to have a child for her, and extorts her and Iya's boss into sleeping with Iya just to get her pregnant. In the all-time meet the boyfriend's upscale government service parents dinner from hell, Masha reveals she is sterile after abortions and had slept with a series of soldiers, as sort of campfire Annies too served the USSR, and were not fighters at all. And her boyfirend's mother says her son is too soft to get through any hard times with her, as he storms out of the dining room, and the relationship with Masha disintegrates on the spot. Everyone at the dining table knew everyone else was telling the hard truths, which was actually refreshing. So Masha and Iya, living in one small apartment, conclude they have only one life-affirming dream and path to carry them on -- Iya having a baby the two could raise together, which, though unrealized, is the high note of a narrative of bleakness. Detail was rich, and the plotting and script were inventive, and the acting, superb. The term beanpole referred to tall, thin Iya, who was called that. But it is layered, as a beanpole is just a tall pole with no meat on it. And that is what was left of Leningrad, as the whole surviving population had to rebuild life, commerce, infrastructure, sufficiency of all sorts, as well as the just as important inner lives of dreams, hopes, ambitions and directions of the people. An interesting and unusual take. Living without war is way better than picking up the pieces after war. Bravo!
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
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