10 outstanding Soviet films

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Everyone should see these original and vivid films.

Thanks to the Soviet film school, many films have appeared that have become classics. These are real works of art, they are still loved and revised. Lifehacker has collected paintings highly appreciated by critics and viewers, which most vividly characterize their era.

1. Battleship "Potemkin"

• USSR, 1925.
• Dramatic epic.
• Duration: 75 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

The plot is based on a genuine historical event - the uprising on the battleship "Prince Potemkin" in 1905. The film begins with the sailors of one of the battleships of the Black Sea Fleet, outraged by the arbitrariness of the officers, refusing borscht made from rotten meat. A mutiny begins on the ship, during which the sailors manage to seize command. Residents of Odessa support the uprising, and this leads to a bloody massacre in the city: the tsarist police shoot peaceful unarmed people.

Sergei Eisenstein's work has been repeatedly named the best film of all time. And even now it is easy to understand why: the director used special effects unprecedented at that time. In one of the episodes, stone lions even come to life, which, from the horror of everything that happens, descend from their pedestals.

Another innovative technique is the emotional use of color. When the team captures the battleship, a scarlet flag is raised above the ship. Eisenstein hand-painted this single color frame of the film.

The shooting scene on the Potemkin Stairs and especially the shot with the rolling carriage inspired many directors and was quoted many times in films: from Brian de Palma's The Untouchables to The Simpsons.

2. A man with a movie camera

• USSR, 1929.
• Documentary.
• Duration: 66 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 4.

The film depicts an abstract day in the life of a 1920s city. The viewer is shown a chaotic urban symphony made up of short documentary fragments.

Avant-garde artist Dziga Vertov - one of the pioneers of documentary filmmaking - was an opponent of feature films and believed that cinema should convey the truth of life. The director's principles are reflected in the monumental work "The Man with the Movie Camera". It is a veritable encyclopedia of cinematic tricks: double exposure (overlapping images), Dutch angle ("obstruction of the horizon"), freeze-frame, shooting in reflection and others.

For the sake of successful shots, Dziga Vertov and his brother Mikhail Kaufman seemed to be ready for anything. For example, they fearlessly lay down on the rails to film a passing train from below, or climbed very tall buildings without any insurance.

Contemporaries did not appreciate Vertov's on-screen manifesto. But in 2014 the British magazine Sight & Sound named Critics' 50 Greatest Documentaries of All Time "The Man with a Movie Camera" as the best documentary film of all time.

3. Cranes are flying

• USSR, 1957.
• War drama.
• Duration: 97 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 3.

At the center of the narrative is the poignant story of two lovers - Veronica and Boris, who were forever torn apart by the war. When Boris goes to the front, the orphaned Veronica is forced to marry Mark, the hero's cousin.

Now the tape directed by Mikhail Kalatozov and cameraman Sergei Urusevsky is recognized as a masterpiece. Along with the paintings of Eisenstein and Tarkovsky, "The Cranes Are Flying" is considered one of the symbols of Russian cinema.

But the fate of the film could have turned out completely differently, if not for Claude Lelouch. While still a student, the future most important director of the French "new wave" happened to be on the set of the tape as an assistant operator. Thanks to Lelouch's connections, the picture got to the Cannes Film Festival and received the main prize - "Palme d'Or".

4. The fate of a person

• USSR, 1959.
• War drama.
• Duration: 103 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

At the beginning of World War II, a native of Voronezh, Andrei Sokolov, goes to fight at the front. There, a man gets a shell shock and is captured by the Nazis. Andrey is sent to a concentration camp, from where the hero is constantly trying to escape. Finally he succeeds, but when he returns home, he learns the terrible news.

The Fate of a Man, based on the story of the same name by Mikhail Sholokhov, is one of the most important Russian war films. Moreover, it was filmed by its debutant director, Sergei Bondarchuk, who had to convince the management of Mosfilm and Sholokhov himself for a long time that he could be entrusted with this work.

As a result, the film was received with enthusiasm both in the USSR and in the West. The outstanding Italian director Roberto Rossellini even called "The Fate of a Man" the most powerful film about the war.

The innovation of the picture consisted in the fact that the prisoner of a concentration camp was first shown as a positive character. After all, as you know, a soldier who was captured was automatically declared a traitor under any circumstances. And the film tacitly rehabilitated a huge category of people who were treated unfairly.

5. Ilyich's outpost

• USSR, 1964.
• Drama.
• Duration: 175 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 9.

The film tells about the life of Sergei Zhuravlev and his friends Nikolai Fokin and Slava Kostikov. They are young, full of optimism and want to live without shame.

The lyrical work of Marlen Khutsiev "Zastava Ilyich" is one of the most important Soviet films of the 60s, ahead of its time. The picture was released at the dawn of the thaw and foresaw the themes that in the coming decades would excite Soviet filmmakers: the spiritual life of a person and his inner world.

The famous scene of the party of the golden youth at the Polytechnic Museum turned out to be as believable as possible. After all, the director filmed in it not professional actors, but the real intellectual elite of that time: poets Andrei Voznesensky, Evgeny Yevtushenko, Robert Rozhdestvensky and Bella Akhmadulina, directors Andrei Konchalovsky and Andrei Tarkovsky, singer Bulat Okudzhava.

But as often happened in the USSR, the film went through production hell and suffered greatly from censorship. The difficulty was also in the fact that the perfectionist Khutsiev refused to cut the picture under the pressure of criticism. Instead, he re-shot entire scenes. The tape nevertheless came out on the screens, but in a distorted form and under the title "I am twenty years old." And the audience saw the author's version only in 1988.

6. Once again about love

• USSR, 1968.
• Romantic drama.
• Duration: 92 minutes.
• IMDb: 7, 3.

The film tells about a short romance between two very lonely people - physicist Electron Evdokimov and flight attendant Natasha. The girl openly and honestly fell in love with the hero, but he was not immediately imbued with a reciprocal feeling.

The film "Once Again About Love" was released during the thaw years and shocked the audience with its courage and sincerity. Much of what was shown in the film was new: for example, before in Soviet cinema there were no heroines who could meet a young man in a restaurant and immediately spend the night with him.

The song about a sunbeam, a metaphor of elusive happiness, sounded in the film, went to the people. It was often sung around bonfires, in children's and youth camps.

7. We'll live until Monday

• USSR, 1968.
• Drama.
• Duration: 106 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

Ilya Semyonovich Melnikov teaches history in an ordinary high school. Being an intelligent and caring person, he is deeply worried about how imperfect the Soviet education system is. In addition, the hero is tired of working in an atmosphere of unscrupulousness and hypocrisy among the teaching staff. The situation is complicated by the young teacher Natalya Sergeevna, who is in love with Melnikov.

"We'll Live Until Monday," directed by Stanislav Rostotsky, is rightfully considered one of the best films of the Thaw and of Soviet cinema in general. The image of a teacher experiencing an internal conflict, played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov, delighted educators, critics and ordinary spectators. After the first screening, the audience gave a standing ovation to both the director and the actors.

People's favorite Tikhonov, who by that time had the role of Prince Andrey in Bondarchuk's epic War and Peace, at first did not want to act in a movie about school. But then the actor still succumbed to the insistent request of the director, his great friend. Screenwriter Georgy Polonsky was dissatisfied with this choice: he saw in the role of Melnikov an older and not so attractive artist. And then make-up artists came to the rescue, who helped to age the young performer.

8. Mirror

• USSR, 1974.
• Autobiographical drama.
• Duration: 102 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 1.

The action of this very intimate and autobiographical picture takes place in different time layers: before, during and after the war. Memories and dreams of the lyric hero alternate with the reading of poems by Arseny Tarkovsky, the director's father.

Andrei Tarkovsky has said more than once that all his works are, in one way or another, built on personal experiences. The master laid the basis for "Mirror" his own childhood drama - his father's departure from the family. The film also includes many more authentic details from the biography of the great director. For example, an episode with a fire: when the director was only five years old, he saw a neighbor's house on fire.

True connoisseurs of cinema will surely remember the picturesque buckwheat field, which has become the hallmark of the film. It was fundamentally important for Tarkovsky that buckwheat should grow on the field, as it once did in childhood. But for many years it was sown only with clover and oats. The director rented this field, and the film crew at their own peril and risk sowed it with buckwheat.

9. Go and see

• USSR, 1985.
• War drama.
• Duration: 145 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 3.

In the center of the story are two days in the life of an ordinary Belarusian teenager Flera, who, despite the protests of his mother, goes to a partisan detachment. The team goes on a dangerous mission, leaving Fleur and the girl Glasha in the camp. After some time, the place is shelled. Having survived the bombing, the surviving teenagers miraculously return to their home village of Fleur, but find that all the houses in it are empty.

Critics almost unanimously call the last work of Elem Klimov one of the most devastating, piercing and honest films about the war. "Come and See" significantly influenced the genre of war drama. This can even be found in such famous films as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.

The director wanted to achieve the utmost sincerity, so he insisted that the main character be played not by a professional actor, but by a simple boy. Because of this, the film was filmed in chronological order, even though this approach makes the filmmaking process extremely lengthy and expensive. But thanks to this technique, it was easier for debutant Alexei Kravchenko and other inexperienced performers to play.

10. Courier

• USSR, 1986.
• Comedy drama.
• Duration: 88 minutes.
• IMDb: 8, 0.

Young Ivan comes to work as a courier for a magazine. Before that, the hero failed his exams at the institute, where, in general, he did not really strive. Once, on a regular assignment, Ivan meets Professor Kuznetsov and his daughter Katya. Sympathy develops between young people, but Kuznetsov, a representative of the outgoing generation, is terribly annoyed by the disorderly and impudent Vanya.

The central idea of the film is the conflict between the older and younger generations: the former have lived their lives in vain, and the latter, under the conditions of perestroika, are people without a future.

Karen Shakhnazarov did not immediately have the opportunity to film his own story. In times of strict censorship, the director was forbidden to even think about staging such an ambiguous picture. Therefore, work on the film began only with the coming to power of Gorbachev.

They were looking for a leading male actor for a very long time. Out of hundreds of applicants, Shakhnazarov eventually chose the non-professional actor Fyodor Dunaevsky. Moreover, the young man had a lot in common with his screen image: Dunaevsky often quarreled with the director and argued with everyone on the set.

Of course, it is impossible to fit into one list all the talented paintings created in the USSR. You can add it in the comments and advise readers on your favorite films.