"A Forgotten Tune for the Flute" is a good movie, in the sense of generating positive thinking among its viewers. However, just like many "good" movies, it speculates upon the dark side of nature, for everything is recognized in comparison. Certainly, the movie is about love - love which suddenly appeared between two people belonging to different social and intellectual classes - Leonid, a married bureaucrat from "the Major department of Free Time" (a satirical allusion to the Ministry of Culture), and Ludmila, a lonely young nurse, working in the same building. As long as their relations develop, Ludmila realizes that her lover is an apprehensive and hesitating liar, who can't choose her over his wife (whose father helped him to promote) and who is afraid of social and bureaucratic resentment. However, the feeling seems to be strong and she keeps on giving him a chance. However, this movie is about changes - those political changes of the Perestroika period that have accelerated dissatisfaction with the government and Soviet regime and have touched such taboo-then themes like bureaucracy, mean and poor mode of life of the Soviet citizens, hypocrisy and sanctimony. The movie is about positive thinking and the freedom of self-expression, once lost by the Soviet regime. Leonid, a former flute-player, periodically plays a flute tune, the origins of which are forgotten, just like all those things, once considered as sincere and virtuous, and then forbidden by fanatic regime. This allusion reveals his dependence on bureaucracy, and his inability to value and support pure art that doesn't meet the Soviet ideology standards. Eldar Ryazanov again managed to create a witty, lyrical, yet thought-provoking and controversial cinematographic masterpiece, which perfectly fits its time and contemporary ideas. Though it has certainly fallen out of time-boundedness and explores some of the eternal issues of the human nature. Undoubtly, one can't help but also admire a professionally selected cast, whose acting intensifies the pleasure of watching "A Forgotten Tune..." and makes one say "I do trust" - just like Stanislavski used to note.
Review of Forgotten Tune for the Flute
