Nikita Michałkow's film became an event of the European cinema season. It won an Oscar and a runner-up in Cannes. It fascinated the Russian audience and it ended up on cinema screens of tens of countries. Whatsmore it caused conflicts and arguments like no other Russian film in the 90's.
The chosen point of view is actually surprising itself. It is the summer of 1936. Terror of Stalin is gathering a plentiful harvest. Meanwhile, we fill with the taste of the idyllic country life in an old "aristocratic nest". Today it is a Moscow house of a legendary hero of the civil war - colonel of the Soviet Army Kotov (played dashingly by the director himself). The plebeian, loyal the Stalin and the tenet, lives here with a younger wife Marusia (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), her relatives from an aristocratic, professor family that melancholicly look back at the aroma of the older days before the revolution, and his beloved sic-year-old daughter Nadia (Nadia Michałkowa, the daughter of Nikita. The lazy days fly. The are filled with baths in the river, voyages with a boat, walks near the fields of grown wheat, talks and little argues at the table covered with taste. To this sanctuary hidden under the wings of the impudent comrade Kotov's authority suddenly comes Mitia (Oleg Mieńszykow). He's Marusia's old love. A talented pianist and an ex white emigrant. Suddennly the facts from the past are uncovering. Family secrets. Deeply hidden feelings. And we're almost ready to accept a love story with a classical marriage triangle. But Michałkow prepares us another, most important surprise. The comfort and calmness of this world's life turn out to be a naive illusion in that surprise's sinister light. Innocent gestures, behaviors and foolishnesses turn out to be a grim masquerade. The aura of a holiday carelessness gives place for tragedy.
The director tell all of this very suggestively, with a lot of liberty and talent, with plastically taste and taking care of every detail. He perfectly associate Czechov's auras with the grotesque of the Soviet customs and rituals. He unites the ironic distance with the lyricism of his own memories from childhood. Memories from his house where his mother, a writer and a translator tried to develop the spiritual traditions of the Russian intelligence under a shielding umbrella of his father, a story-writer and a political worker, the author of the Stalinian anthem of the Soviet Union. In Russia it was said about Kotov that he was neither Frunze nor Tuchaczewski. The origin of Mitia was assigned to Siergiej Efron who was the husband of the poet, Marina Cwietajewa. Michałkov assured that all characters are made up except for Katia Mochowa who was a reproduction of his mother's faithful servant.
The cold analysis of the film led the critics to a statement that the director idealizes Kotov by hiding his own work from the 20's. He never gives information about Kotov's dedication to the terror of which he has been one of the creators. There is a lot of truth in there, but the film is not a historical debate. He doesn't say who is good or who should be forsaken (the phrases from the film state: "we were all guilty" or "can you forsake people whose faith, hope and love were stolen?"). He tries to catch a single situation from a summer of 1936. The situation from a very well-known house. He neither gives a prologue to that situation nor he is building his characters' life backwards. Those empty spaces of the characters' life are left for the audience to think about. The symbolic meaning of the round thunder that crawls around the house being a untouchable witness of the happenings is also left for the audience's imagination.
The chosen point of view is actually surprising itself. It is the summer of 1936. Terror of Stalin is gathering a plentiful harvest. Meanwhile, we fill with the taste of the idyllic country life in an old "aristocratic nest". Today it is a Moscow house of a legendary hero of the civil war - colonel of the Soviet Army Kotov (played dashingly by the director himself). The plebeian, loyal the Stalin and the tenet, lives here with a younger wife Marusia (Ingeborga Dapkunaite), her relatives from an aristocratic, professor family that melancholicly look back at the aroma of the older days before the revolution, and his beloved sic-year-old daughter Nadia (Nadia Michałkowa, the daughter of Nikita. The lazy days fly. The are filled with baths in the river, voyages with a boat, walks near the fields of grown wheat, talks and little argues at the table covered with taste. To this sanctuary hidden under the wings of the impudent comrade Kotov's authority suddenly comes Mitia (Oleg Mieńszykow). He's Marusia's old love. A talented pianist and an ex white emigrant. Suddennly the facts from the past are uncovering. Family secrets. Deeply hidden feelings. And we're almost ready to accept a love story with a classical marriage triangle. But Michałkow prepares us another, most important surprise. The comfort and calmness of this world's life turn out to be a naive illusion in that surprise's sinister light. Innocent gestures, behaviors and foolishnesses turn out to be a grim masquerade. The aura of a holiday carelessness gives place for tragedy.
The director tell all of this very suggestively, with a lot of liberty and talent, with plastically taste and taking care of every detail. He perfectly associate Czechov's auras with the grotesque of the Soviet customs and rituals. He unites the ironic distance with the lyricism of his own memories from childhood. Memories from his house where his mother, a writer and a translator tried to develop the spiritual traditions of the Russian intelligence under a shielding umbrella of his father, a story-writer and a political worker, the author of the Stalinian anthem of the Soviet Union. In Russia it was said about Kotov that he was neither Frunze nor Tuchaczewski. The origin of Mitia was assigned to Siergiej Efron who was the husband of the poet, Marina Cwietajewa. Michałkov assured that all characters are made up except for Katia Mochowa who was a reproduction of his mother's faithful servant.
The cold analysis of the film led the critics to a statement that the director idealizes Kotov by hiding his own work from the 20's. He never gives information about Kotov's dedication to the terror of which he has been one of the creators. There is a lot of truth in there, but the film is not a historical debate. He doesn't say who is good or who should be forsaken (the phrases from the film state: "we were all guilty" or "can you forsake people whose faith, hope and love were stolen?"). He tries to catch a single situation from a summer of 1936. The situation from a very well-known house. He neither gives a prologue to that situation nor he is building his characters' life backwards. Those empty spaces of the characters' life are left for the audience to think about. The symbolic meaning of the round thunder that crawls around the house being a untouchable witness of the happenings is also left for the audience's imagination.