Moscow. The year is 1925. Professor Gradov, his wife Mary, their children Nina, Nikita and Kirill, and long-term friends at home, relatives from Moscow and Tiflis, and those who have yet to enter this family and history, are all young and full of hope. Many hopes will come true, but the history of the country in the 30-50s left no chance for a cloudless life for anyone...
Children of the Arbat is a 16-part television serial based on the Children of the Arbat trilogy by Anatoly Rybakov. It aired on the Channel One network more
Children of the Arbat is a 16-part television serial based on the Children of the Arbat trilogy by Anatoly Rybakov. It aired on the Channel One network in Russia in 2004.
The series closely follows the plot of Rybakov's trilogy. Set in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, it tells the story of Sasha Pankratov, a student and loyal Komsomol member from the Arbat neighborhood of Moscow who is unfairly exiled to Siberia. As his family and friends, including his love interest Varya Ivanova, grapple with Sasha's sudden detention and departure, the series shows the growing fear and paranoia that gripped Moscow in the years before the murder of Sergey Kirov and the start of Stalin's Great Purge. close
Tyazhely Pesok / Heavy Sand follows an Ukrainian Jewish family over 30 years against the backdrop of dramatic events in the Soviet Union in the first more
Tyazhely Pesok / Heavy Sand follows an Ukrainian Jewish family over 30 years against the backdrop of dramatic events in the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century: WWI, the Bolshevik revolution, the pogroms in Ukraine, the Stalinist repression, WWII and Nazi occupation, the ghetto and annihilation.
It is ultimately a story about human nature, about the triumph of love against all odds (e.g. despite the seemingly incompatible backgrounds of the two lovers, Rakhil and Jakov) and of its resilience over time and circumstance. It is about family bonds, about human altruism, dignity and courage. Also about cruelty and the holocaust, a tribute to the Jews that suffered and to the non-Jews who were willing to risk their own lives to help them.
The acting is generally outstanding, as is the filming and the music. Attention to historical detail is exquisite (clothes, decors, culture…).
The script departs substantially from Rybakov's novel, on which the film is based, bringing in some different characters and scenes. I guess this was partly unavoidable, because of the novel's narrative approach, compared to the need for dialogues in the film, which had to be made up.
The series is, in my opinion, not without flaws. It combines some truly moving scenes with others that left me wondering what the point was, and thinking that 16 episodes were not needed after all. Although the characters' complexity rings true, some of the scenes seem implausible. Plus the 2 main characters hardly age throughout the film, everybody speaks Russian everywhere… While the film captures much of the spirit of the book, it is weaker in many respects, including in its portrayal of Jewish suffering. Needless to say, I preferred the book, but this is almost always so. Provided you are not looking for 100% accurate history, nor 100% Rybakov's novel you may, like me, be left with a very positive overall impression.
(From IMDB: juan_palmero65@yahoo.fr) close
Three Half Graces is a 2006 comedy melodrama directed by David Keosayan. series "Love on the knife's edge" . melodrama "Mistress" ). Three old friends, more
Three Half Graces is a 2006 comedy melodrama directed by David Keosayan. series "Love on the knife's edge" . melodrama "Mistress" ).
Three old friends, who received the nickname “semigration” in childhood, are already over forty. They excelled in the professional field: Sonya is the director of the travel agency, Alice is the head of the television company, Natasha is the lead editor of the magazine. But in the personal life of the problem — one left the husband, the other lives with a tyrannical mother, and the third is still in free flight. But one day, the women gave alms, and in gratitude received balloons, inside which were written mysterious predictions. . . close