This will end badly

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May 112010
 

vlcsnap-00006

Well, that was a waste. Last October I quit watching Voditel dlya Vera at this point, where the tension was too much to take any more. I was waiting to get up enough nerve to watch the rest of it.

Myra and I just now watched the whole thing, all the way to the end.

What a letdown. It’s a great movie up until this point. But it’s as if the filmmaker (Pavel Chukhraj) lost his nerve at this point, too, and tacked on an ending that’s out of character with what had happened to this point. I wish I could ask him what happened. His other movie that I’ve seen (Vor) didn’t suffer from a weak ending, so I know it’s not due to a lack of ability. After seeing Voditel dlya Vera and Vor I would gladly watch (and probably rewatch) anything else he’s made. But he lost his way here, or something.

BTW, one of the best movie endings ever is the one in Vozvrashcheniye. IMO.

Оксана Дацкая

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May 042010
 

lichnoe-delo

When I first started watching Russian movies a few years ago I wondered to myself, Where do they get all these good child actors?    I have since learned that Russia has plenty of not-so-great child actors, too, but about half way through this movie I found I was back to my original question:  Where do all these great child actors come from?  How is something like that taught to people who are so young?

I’m not able to follow this movie very well (no English subtitles) and I’m only about 2/3 of the way through.   But the young woman in the center is putting on quite a good performance.    Her name is Oksana Dackaja.   I haven’t been able to find that she ever appeared in another film after Личное дело судьи Ивановой.

This  makes me wonder, have there been any good child actors in Russia who went on to successful acting careers as adults?    It’s probably a rarity for that to happen in any country.

Oleg Tabakov, again

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May 012010
 

vlcsnap-00002

While watching Meri Poppins, do svidaniya, Myra commented that Miss Andrew looked like she was played by a man. I hadn’t noticed that. But it turns out that she was — by Oleg Tabakov, who we’ve also seen in several other movies. As in Mary Poppins, he often plays an obnoxious character.

In a post a few months ago about his role in Unfinished Piece for Player Piano, I had wondered if he ever played a sympathetic character. I still don’t know. We’ve seen him in Moskva slezam ne verit, Neskolko dney iz zhizni I.I. Oblomova, and Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny. But those are just a few of his many roles. So maybe we’ll find one yet where he played a nice guy.