Day 16

Today’s movie Peter FM was a cute love story. A woman Masha is a radio head for Peter FM, a local station in St.Petersberg. She is about to get married. She loses her phone and a man Maxim picks it up. They talk back and forth and form a relationship. They talk only over the phone due to their inability to meet in real life. Every time they set a place and time they do see each other and just miss each other by seconds. This drives me crazy; I don't understand why they can just meet each other. She ends up leaving her soon to be husband because she realizes that she is no longer in love with him. The radio station helps her realize this when a woman calls to ask what to do with her husband after she is no longer in love with him. Maxim and she keep communicating and finally when you think this is going to be the time he drops the phone in the river. When you think they are now never going to communicate again Maxim calls the radio station to make an announcement to help find Masha. He found her and hopefully they will finally meet. Aww..

Day 15

The film The Return was quite shocking to me. Two boys, Ivan and Andrei, have been with there mother with the absence of their father for twelve years. He shows up and the mother just lets them go on a rip with him. I thought it was odd even though he was the father a person can greatly change in twelve years, The boys Ivan especially treated their father different then an average boy would. The Dad also treated them strange. Throughout the movie it seemed as if something was bound to go wrong, but I didn't think it would have been the way it was. The Father was always mysterious and we didn't know his story very well. When
Ivan was on the tower I thought that Ivan would have been the one to die, not the father. I also found that the boys treated it well for the circumstances. They got him to the boat and in the boat and to the mainland, but sadly the boat drifts away and sinks. It was heartbreaking to hear the boys call out "Papa" as he sinks and won't ever return this time.

The Father to me was testing the boys. He was trying to make up for lost time and turn them into men. He made them do work, which helped them on the way home. The Father wanted to make up for the time he was gone. It seems that he did not want it to be the way it was. He had the picture of the family in the car and I believe that the pictures at the end were what was in the trunk that he digs up on the island. He loved them.

Day 14

The movie Brother was much different than the movies that we have recently watched over the course. It was a gangster movie and had a lot of action and killing involved. You can easily tell that the film was after the fall of the USSR. First off there was no MOSFILM in the beginning. Another dead giveaway was all the American items and Americanized stuff throughout the film as well as even other out of the country things not affiliated with just Russian. There were food and drinks like Coke, Sprite and even Mc Donald’s. There were electronics Like the Walkman CD player and Sony TV's and Panasonic VHS players. There was American music, clothing like blue jeans. Cars there were Jeeps, Plymouths and Volvos. There were people from America and France in the film.

There were two quotes that I heard and wrote down as I heard them because they stuck out. One from Viktor to Danila saying "St.Petersberg, not Leningrad, St.Pete's for short" and another was Danila speaking saying "Americans are going to bite it" Still some resentment? I think so.

day 13

Little Vera, the movie that we watched was more like today’s TV. It was like teen mom or some show about a young girl getting married. Vera was rebellious and she had only met the Sergei a short time before falling in love with him and sleeping with him. It almost seems like they want to get married no more than a week after meeting. He moves in and everything. This must be a common thing in Russia the family only met him once and he moved right in. He was rude and the father even stabbed him, he did not tell on the father which I found extremely odd and even more odd was that he moved back in with the family. Russian customs must be much different or must have been much different at the end of the USSR.

Another odd thing I noticed was that it was against the law to have American currency. Vera had a twenty dollar bill and her mother insisted that she turn it in to the police. She ended up tearing it up but she could have gone in a lot of trouble for having it which shows even more how rebellious she was.

The title Little Vera was somewhat misconceiving. She was turning in to a grown women and wasn’t little anymore, she was about to get married and start a life of her own. She however was daddy’s little girl towards the end of the movie when she runs and hides under the boat in the rain.

Day 11

The movie Ballad of a Soldier is not like other war films. It only has a little bit of war in it. It shows Alyosha hit two tanks and then go home on leave. It is a cute story. Alyosha is very caring for other people and would go out of his way to help. He helps deliver some soap and a letter. He helps a man to his train. He helps people as the train is attacked He then helps a young women, Shura home, while falling in love with her. This is not an average Russian soldier. He does not care just of the war both others which makes him a true hero.

The movie shows war in a different point of view. It shows the home life of people as well as people going home from the war, if and only if they are lucky. It shows the efforts of people to help the war. Working hard in the fields and cleaning up after places have been attacked. It shows people waiting and hoping for loved ones to come home. 

Day 10

As I watched the film The Mirror there was 3 stories. All of them had one man in common. In one he is a child and it is before the war and it shows nature greatly. Then it shows him during war time and then once more as he is getting a divorce and the child they have together must be with the mother.

There are also many other things with the picture and scenes that I noticed. In the begining there is a barn FIRE and then a woman washing her hair and WATER falling down the wall. Then there is a YOUNG woman in real life and she looks in the mirror and she is OLD. Then the picture is BLACK AND WHITE and then COLOR. Then there are people SLEEPING and then AWAKE. 

Also I noticed that there were tons of Mirrors throughout the movie. Hence the name The Mirror. It to me always seemed like a picture or a scene. It was a painted picture, nothing like real life. Everything is masked and realty must be hidden.

An odd thing I noticed were the doctors. In the opening scene a woman is asking questions to a young man who has a speech problem. She uses weird methods of fixing this and yet it works. There is also a part where a woman is floating over a bed. Another weird thing was the woman that told the boy to read the book. Then she disappeared as if she was a ghost.

Day 8

I, in general, liked this film better than all the others. I most likely liked it better because it was a more recent film, Burnt By the Sun. I liked Kotov's character. He was both a strong leader as well as a wonderful father and husband. I did not like Mitya. He was as polite jerk. He always  acted all nicey nice, but he was evil. At the end he did what he had to do for the counrty however, but that does not mean that it was the right thing. Burnt by the Sun in general, could have been relating to the Red Army and being burnt by the color red. Red is a color of flames, and flames burn. The song throughout the movie helps show that even though they were for the army and the war they really weren't, they just had to go along with it or die.

Day 7

I found that today's film Cirus had many meanings to it. The more obvious being the fact the Russia thinks that they are better than everyone else. The show that America looks down on bastard children and furthermore mixed race children. The movie goes out of the way to even say that they are where all people are free. In addition to these although most likely was not intensional the movie is USSR VS America for the "flight to space". USSR and America were fighting for the first in space and also first on the moon. The USSR was first in space with satellite in 1957 which is 20 years after the film. They also had the first soft landing on the moon. Americans however were first people to walk on the moon in 1969. Even though this was well after the film it was ironic.

Day 6

Todays movie Chapaev had a large amount of Socialist Realism. I really liked the relationship between Gemeral Chapaev and Commissar Furmanov. At first they were always astray and then they end up having and excellent relationship. The hug, and looked like a kiss, was a great way for them to say goodbye. Petka was the ultimate hero as well as Anka in the battle. She was a really good shooter and without her help they would have been ambushed and would have lost the battle. Petka at the end was the one that helped get as far as they did. Although they lost their lives the movie was great. The death of them really emphised the war for the reds to continue to fight.

Day 5

The music in The Man with the Movie Camera was much more interesting. It went 100% with the film as well as having parts with people talking, music instruments, birds and also automotives. They showed similarities in everything such as homes, trees, and benches. The begining starts with a women sleepinh as well as the town. She awakes and so does the town. The movie went from people sleeping and then waking and going to work. They all seemed happy to be working. After work was finished they had play, like going to the beach, watching/playing sports and other various activities. Technology had many advancements and the film had alot of "behind the scene" type of footage. The film shows the women working on the film as well as the man filming it. The movie was showing the working is most important. The movie even says their famous saying "workers of the world unite"

Day 4

Battleship Potemkin was extremely more political and had an not so storyline plot. There we not set actors it was just people in general. I found that it was extremely gruesome. The part when the men are shooting down the people was a horrifying site. The little boy that was shoot was sad and with the blood dripping down his face as he calls for his mother would have most likely made people think that the men with rifles were the "bad: people. To top that off was the poor baby that was riding down the stairs and just before you see what would have happened to the baby as the carriage is just about to tip the scene changes. The music throughout the film was more eventful and went very well with the film. A good feature of the film was the depth of the scenes. The film had many scenes panned out far with views of everything that was going on. In addition another excellent feature was capturing the film on a boat. Russian Cinema continues to move forward.

Day 3

As we watched the 3 silent films, A Child of the Big City, Ruse and The Dying Swan there was some amazing first time effects in these films. In the first film there was zooming, dreams that were on screen with the actress and also moving camera shots. The second film had a minor, but yet interesting effect with the sight of looking through the key hole. As for the third, The Dying Swan there was extremely suspenseful music, fading lights, color on the picture as the screen is all in shades of both blue and purple. In that film there is also fading as well as a storm with lighting.

The Silent films were interesting in that fact that you had to use your own perspectives to determine what exactly was going on. The silent films however, all though they are the first films, had AWFUL acting. The actors and actresses were over dramtic, but some people might just need the over exaggeration to figure out what is going on.

One other note is that most of the movies involved bad, cruel and evil people. The first and second film had disonest women and made women look like bad people in general, lower than men and also sleazy women. The third the man was just crazy about death.

Last of all in the 1st movie I noticed that the dancers name was _____ Bauer and in the 2nd movie the wife was _____ Bauer. Professor Isham said that the second was really his wife and there was a relation. What about the first? Hmm?

Day 2

The movie Irony of Fate or Take a Bath was just plain fate. The plot movies along and Zheyna is sent to Nadya's home, which by fate they just so happen to have the same adress. Then also with fate and irony they are both just recently engaged. It also just seems to happen that everytime one of their current partners just so happen to be in the way of them truely expressing their love to one another. The music that they both sing and play on the guitar is one of the main loves that they both share and it really puts their relationship above and beyond the level of just strangers. The songs they sing have to do with the point of the relationship they are in. At first they are alone even though they have a partner, then is progresses to full blown love at the end.

Day 1:The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!

So, Today I watch the 1970's Soviet comedy, The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! in my Russian Cinema class. This was the first Russian film I have ever seen and I found it very entertaining. In the begining they showed the opening credits of the film. It showed that all the architecture of Russian homes is exactly the same, which helped when watching the film. The main character is Zhenya who gets totally wasted and sent on the wrong plane to Leningrad. He thinks he is at his home which is the same architecture as all the other homes, but he is really at Nadya's house. The housing is culturally perculiar to the Russians and not the United States. The humor in this Russian film is really sarcastic and over exaggerated, where as American films tend to have less noticable and more realistic humor, unless a character is totally out there like Zhenya. I am excited to watch the rest of the film tomorrow