Audience Member
It's alarming, to say the least, how little the English speaking world knows about Russia's past. You can't really call it a Russian film. Ironically, this movie was filmed in Zhdanov(Mariupol), which is now a part of Ukriane. The director chose this city because that's where he was from and he wanted to show the reality of where he came from. This city always been a ghetto. Now it's even worse, since this part of Ukraine is engulfed in a civil war. So the hopeless openededness of this film was right on point.
During this period there was a plethora of similar films in the Soviet Union, but for some weird reason only this one was known outside of the country. There were films with worse sex scenes before and after this one, and unlike many other countries, there was no censorship, so TV was full of nudity at the time.
This era of Soviet film was called "Chernuha" which translates as darkness, despair. It was full of realism, had this arthouse vibe, had very genuine acting, and always had a somewhat hidden psychological or philosophical dilemma in it. Sounds like Oscar's winner Moonlight, haha. Indeed, if Moonlight took place in the 80's Soviet Union and instead of drugs people were drinking, it would fit right in. Some scenes are almost identical. (i.e. filming a pot on a stove for a good 1 minute or so or a character is staring at something or thinking for a long time.) I actually seen a lot of them when I was a kid, but it took me decades to watch most of them again. Many never been preserved and therefore are in a very bad shape and some I still can't find, so they were pretty much lost during the switch to the digital format... During the 90's, Russian society rejected everything from the Soviet era. Even this film would have probably been lost if it wasn't for unusual international interest in it because of some naive sex scene.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/24/23
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Audience Member
Cliched tale of a bored, disaffected teenager who falls in love with a man and must deal with the fallout from her parents.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
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Audience Member
Everyone acts really irrashional yet it seems like we know these characters from our lives.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Audience Member
Little Vera (Russian:, Malenkaya Vera), produced at the Gorky Film Studio and released in 1988, is a film by Russian film director Vasili Pichul. The title in Russian is ambiguous and can also mean "Little Faith," symbolizing the characters' lack of hope (or a glimmer thereof) Part of the films popularity upon release was due to being one of the first Soviet movies with explicit sexual scenes. In Russia, the ordinary teenager Vera (Natalya Negoda) lives a leisured life with her drunkard father and her simpleton mother, without working and waiting for the calling for a technical course of telephone operator. Her brother Victor (Aleksandr Negreba) lives in Moscow with the family of his own and occasionally visits his dysfunctional family and Vera, being always motive for arguing. When Vera meets the student of university Sergei (Andrei Sokolov), they fall in love for each other and decide to get married. Sergei moves to Vera's house, but lives in conflict with her father. This relationship leads the family to a tragedy. Evbert States: "For Americans, "Little Vera" confirms what we already knew: Life for the poor, the unemployed and the alcoholic is as bad in the Soviet Union as it is here" If you take away the sex scandal this caused in 1988 in Russia this is just an ordinary film about sex starved teens--more like risque Scandinavian movie. It is interesting to see the Russian culture and all that stuff and their ways of reacting to each other. If visual effects of confinement aren't possible, then sound is used to heighten the sense of disparity. Most of the dialogue in Little Vera, with the exception of less intense moments when the music volume is increased, is shouted, yelled or screamed. Vera's family is constantly in conflict and even the most civil dinner eventually erupts into argument. I found the constant barrage of sound equally as suffocating as the repeated scenes within the tiny apartment, and twice as hard on the nerves. Unlike Vera, however, we could leave when it was all over. It is hard not to feel sorry for Vera at the end of the movie, but is our sympathy justified? She returns, time and again, to the very apartment and situation that is slowly taking the life out of her. Can she really be considered a victim if she is bringing a lot of her misery upon herself? Good movie but USA viewers will have trouble identifying the statements the movie made upon its release. Three stars
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/25/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Little Vera (Russian:, Malenkaya Vera), produced at the Gorky Film Studio and released in 1988, is a film by Russian film director Vasili Pichul. The title in Russian is ambiguous and can also mean "Little Faith," symbolizing the characters' lack of hope (or a glimmer thereof) Part of the films popularity upon release was due to being one of the first Soviet movies with explicit sexual scenes. In Russia, the ordinary teenager Vera (Natalya Negoda) lives a leisured life with her drunkard father and her simpleton mother, without working and waiting for the calling for a technical course of telephone operator. Her brother Victor (Aleksandr Negreba) lives in Moscow with the family of his own and occasionally visits his dysfunctional family and Vera, being always motive for arguing. When Vera meets the student of university Sergei (Andrei Sokolov), they fall in love for each other and decide to get married. Sergei moves to Vera's house, but lives in conflict with her father. This relationship leads the family to a tragedy. Evbert States: "For Americans, "Little Vera" confirms what we already knew: Life for the poor, the unemployed and the alcoholic is as bad in the Soviet Union as it is here" If you take away the sex scandal this caused in 1988 in Russia this is just an ordinary film about sex starved teens--more like risque Scandinavian movie. It is interesting to see the Russian culture and all that stuff and their ways of reacting to each other. If visual effects of confinement aren't possible, then sound is used to heighten the sense of disparity. Most of the dialogue in Little Vera, with the exception of less intense moments when the music volume is increased, is shouted, yelled or screamed. Vera's family is constantly in conflict and even the most civil dinner eventually erupts into argument. I found the constant barrage of sound equally as suffocating as the repeated scenes within the tiny apartment, and twice as hard on the nerves. Unlike Vera, however, we could leave when it was all over. It is hard not to feel sorry for Vera at the end of the movie, but is our sympathy justified? She returns, time and again, to the very apartment and situation that is slowly taking the life out of her. Can she really be considered a victim if she is bringing a lot of her misery upon herself? Good movie but USA viewers will have trouble identifying the statements the movie made upon its release. Three stars
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
scintillating portrait of russia after the fall of communism. vera painfully navigates the course of societal freedom minus any structure (with little guidance from her dysfunctional family). natalya negoda is amazing in the title role.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
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