Piter FM

 This movie seemed very westernized in the fact that it had a happy ending and there are no questions left unanswered. This is why I am choosing to call this a movie and not a film. Films to me seem like older and more thought provoking than movies do. I liked that this movie showed us around st. Petersburg and let us into a more modern Russian lifestyle. I also liked that Maksim is an architect and this allows for close ups of the buildings in the movie. The story for this movie is defiantly one that is played on many times but this one had them actually see each other but not who it was. This was a nice twist and it was almost making the point that the world is small and your "love" could be around the corner,  you just have to look. Over all this film was more of a chick flick and not my kind of movie.

The Return

This film is about a father who comes back after twelve years to check in on his kids. The father takes his two boys, Andrey and Ivan, on a holiday trip. During the trip Andrey sucks up to his father while Ivan holds resentment and doesn't know why he even came back. This is a question that is never fully answered but i have a theory about it. Through out the film the father did things that where out of the ordinary. An example is when he catches a thief and tells Andrey and Ivan to beat him up or when they were on the boat and he made them row. These seemed like he was testing them or training them to be better men. It was like he was going back to see what kind of men they were becoming and trying to shape them in any way he could. Near the end of the movie when the father dies is really a turning point because this was the point when Andrey and Ivan start to think of him as their father and start missing him. They start carrying him back home which is like them trying to hold onto having a father. At the very end the boat where their fathers body is sinks. This was a very touching moment and it could symbolizes them letting go of their father. In the end this film took its time but it had a good story and i enjoyed it.

Little Vera

This film was about a troubled girl(Vera) who is basically rebelling against her family. Vera argues with her parents nonstop and goes to parties where are fights and drugs. She leads on a boy named Andrei but she falls in love with a player named Sergei. Eventually she decides to get married to him which she seems to do to piss off her family. She family doesn't like Sergei and the dad at one point stabs him. After this point vera tries to OD on pills and alcohol. The movie ends with Sergei moving back with them and Vera saying she loves him and he doesn't say anything. This film was different from another film we have watched so far because it showed the internal conflicts in a family and was against drinking. I found it strange that when Vera was getting married Sergei moved into there house no questions asked. That would never fly in America but is very common in Russia. One person who we didn't see much in the film but is probably the one person holding the family together was Victor. He comes home to talk to Vera when she's rebelling, he saves Vera when she overdoses, he gives the family antidepressants, and is the pride and joy of the parents. I almost feel sorry for him because him family depends on him so much and he starts to get in trouble with work because he keeps going back to help his family. Over all this movie shows how alcoholism harms the family and how ones persons actions effects the family.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

This was one of the longer movies that we have watched but it held my interest for the most part. The film was about the life  of a factory worker named Katerina. She falls in love with Rudolph but lies about what she does for a living. She gets pregnant and tells him the truth and he abandons her. Soon after this the film jumps ahead to Katerina who has worked up the chain in the factory to become an executive director. She eventually meets Gosha who falls in love with her. He is very humble and respective person. He wins her over by taking her on a pick nick where she meets his friends who highly respect him. I feel that what really won her over was that he didn't boast about his success and did little things that made her happy. At one point she is falling asleep on a chair so he covered her with a blanked. After things start going well between them Rudolph shows up and ends up getting Gosha to walk out on Katerina. In the end her friends go and talk to Gosha and get him to go back to her. This part i felt was a little unrealistic because he just went back and they didn't really talk about what had happened. In the film I liked that it was basically broken into two parts. This really helped it show how the decisions that are made earlier in life effect you later down the road. Katerina came from nothing but worked hard and was honest and became very successful. Her friend Lyudmila tried to cheat the system and married into wealth and fame but ended up miserable and alone. Overall I thought this was a good movie and I would defiantly go back and watch it again.

Ballad of a Soldier

I really enjoyed this movie because at first i thought it was going to be just another war film, but it turns into a film about going  home. The beginning is really the only part that has any actual warfare in it. In this scene, Alyosha destroyed two tank all by himself. This brings him fame and he uses this fame to get on leave to go and repair his family roof. During his travels home he helps lots of people and makes new friends. The part of the film that i thought was the best was at the end when Alyosha meets up with his mother. This was a very emotional moment and really showed how the town missed him. During this scene we get a glimpse of the town which is basically women because all the men are off at war. This just showed how bad the war effected everyone. I thought this whole scene was really sad because we know that this was the last time his family would ever see him and he couldn't even really be with them. He talks to his mom for about 10 minutes and then he has to leave right away to go back to war. I felt really bad that he made this long journey and hardly got to be with his family. Overall I really enjoyed this film and felt like this "war" story was different from any other one i have heard before.

Mirror

This was a strange film. I honestly couldn't say that i knew what was going on. Although i may have been lost in the story a few things really caught my attention. The Film switches between color and black and white often. This ether represents a dream or a flash back. Each time the film would go to black and white there would be lots of water. From raining to washing to a room flooding, each time had something to do with water. Another thing that caught my eye was the wind in this film. In the beginning of the film, when the man stops by to ask for directions, he looks back slowly and the wind picks up and moves all the grass. The wind had almost an eerie feel to it. Another time, near the beginning, the camera shows the boy waking up and then cuts to a glimpse of wind moving the grass again. This time it looks like some invisible thing is moving through the grass. Something that really confused me was the whole building on fire. It kept going back to it and i couldn't figure out why so much importance was placed on it. Another thing that really confused me was when the boy was in the apartment alone and sees what I'm guessing were ghosts. They make him read for them and then they disappear. I don't know why this was added into the movie but it did confuse me quite a bit. Overall i actually kind of enjoyed this movie because even though i  was confused i was intrigued by how strange this movie was.

Ivan the Terrible

Today we watched a film directed by Eisenstein called Ivan the Terrible. This movie had lots of costumes and it almost felt like at times i was watching a play. Ivan in the movie becomes the Tsar and pisses off a lot of people by making them pay tribute to him. The other leaders think that Ivan's love Anastasia is a problem and straying his views away from what is important. They end up poisoning her to get her out of the picture. The movie ends with Ivan amassing an army and heading back to take Moscow over. I felt that this was a difficult movie to watch because it was slower. I did enjoy the different costumes that everyone wore because it held my attention.

Burnt by the Sun

Burnt by the Sun is a film made in 1994 that shows the tragic side of life in the 1930's. During this time there was lots of fear and terror because people where being arrested and killed for little to no reason. This as happening because Stalin was trying to keep power by putting fear into people who would oppose him.In the movie there is a fire ball that appears at different times in the movie. The ball appeared when something bad was happening or going to happen. This fireball represents people getting burned by the sun, hence the title. Kotov and Chapaev are both similar a different. They both are military leaders and have strong opinions of politics. Kotov differs from Chapaev because Kotov doesn't go out of control like Chapaev does and he actually seems to understand politics. Mitya was a very different character in the movie. He clowns around but has a hidden agenda. He knows that he has to kill Kotov but doesn't want the others to know whats going on. In the end of the movie Kotov is killed and Mitya commits suicide. I believe that Mitya did this because he knew he could never go back to his old life and from the guilt of killing Kotov. I think that this film was directed toward an international audience because there where no films that showed this kind of thing and they wanted the world to know what had happened. Over all i felt like this was a good movie and really helped give us and idea of how twisted and fearful it would have been to live in that time there.

Circus

I felt that this was one of the more entertaining films we have watched. Circus had a pretty good story and was quite funny at times. It is a very socialist realist film. The parts that really showed this where near then end when the people where so accepting of Dixon having a black child. It made America look bad while promoting Russia. Also at the end they were all marching together showing Russian pride. I felt like this was ironic because the movie portrayed Russia as a happy place even though they were going through extremely scary time. One thing with this movie that confused me at times was when they would switch between the languages. It made it hard for me to figure out who could understand them in the film. Over all i felt that this was a good film and really enjoyed the art in the circus performances.

Chapaev

The movie was a little slow and i think that so far this was one of the hardest for me to focus on. Although this movie had sound, which was nice, it didn't help to much keep my interest. I did like Chapaev character in the movie. He starts out quite crazy and felt like he was the most important person ever. But as the movie went on i felt that he becomes a good leader and started to get under control. I also liked Anka in this film because i feel that she was initially under appreciated but during the fight she played a big role. I am not entirely sure why this film was such a big blockbuster movie. It could be that the movie has sound and voices which helps bring in the emotion and a connection to the audience. This is something that the Battleship did not have. It could also be that the movie is about war and actually showed a semi big battle between two sides. Battleship was more about rallying people to fight and there isn't really a battle but more of a one side fight. One last thing that this film had that the other one did not was a love interest. This could have made the movie appeal to more people. In the end this was a decent movie just not my type of movie.

Man with the movie camera

This film was a very interesting depiction of life. I couldn't say that there was any real story other than just showing all the different aspects of life. The film moved very fast at times and was difficult to absorb with just one play through. In the film it showed different scenes with hard work in factories, busy streets that where chaotic, funeral showing death, woman giving new life to a child, and an injured man depicting hardship. This really makes you think about how all these things are what life is. Next lets move to the music of the movie. It was a very peculiar sound choice but it really felt like it worked. The music was different things clanging and ringing in harmony and at one point the film even showed someone playing odd things to make music. The music also had a pattern. It started out slow and then got faster and faster until it started to go crazy and chaotic. This played very well with  the way the pictures moved  faster and transitioned quicker. The last part of this film I would like to address is the very unique film manipulations that really add to the chaos. This film was very impressive in doing this because there where so many differ ways that the film changed. There was the split screen top and bottom, folding the streets, slowing down time, speeding up time, stopping time,and even reversing time. These tricks were done very well and really added to the film. Overall i really enjoyed this film because it was so different and nothing like I've seen before.

Silent Films

These past few films we have watched have been some of the hardest to watch. Silent films are very different from what we are used to. Its nearly imposable to convey a complex story because you can't hear a persons tone or words. The first few silent films we watched were very slow and drawn out. Some could argue that this is because they are trying to show emotion and deepen the connection with the audience but the camera never really moves and the scenes seem to become stagnant. The most recent film we watched was Battleships Potemkin. This has been the best silent films so far that we have watched. The camera moved more than in the earlier films and more things where going on. This film was more action than drama which i enjoyed. I still feel that it is very difficult for people of our time to really get into these older films. We have been spoiled with much grander movies with special effects and sounds that we can't really appreciate these films. One example of this would be in the movie Battleships, they have all this build up for this big battle with the ships and then nothing happens. Sure i don't know how they would have done this battle but coming from our time it felt like it needed something more. I hope that as we progress through this class and the movies become more modern, that it will get more entertaining and easier to watch.

Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath part 2

To conclude my earlier blog about Irony of Fate, i would like to address how the movie continues to focus on the culture by using the characters to sing songs and play music. This deepens the connections from the audience to the characters and helps give the viewers a taste of their culture. This was really the first film that i have seen in another language and at times i would try to just listen to there voices in Russian instead of just reading the subs. Even though i could understand exactly word for word what they were saying, i could figure it out and it was a very different experience.

Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath

The movie so far is quite interesting and funny. It shows Russian traditions such as the bath house or how important welcoming the new year is for them. One thing that i have learned from this film that is unique about Russian life is that they tend to live in apartments. This concept really opened my eyes to how different our life styles are from ours over in the United States. I look forward to finishing it and learning more about Russian life through this film.