Raba lyubvi (1976)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Nikita Mikhalkov

Writers:

Fridrikh Gorenshtein (writer)
Andrei Konchalovsky (writer)

Release Date:

September 1976 (Soviet Union)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Olga Voznesenskaya is a silent screen star whose pictures are so popular that underground revolutionaries risk capture to see them...

Plot Keywords:

Bolshevik | Revolutionary | Russia | Love | Cameraman

Cast

Yelena Solovey	...	Olga Nikolayevna Voznesenskaya
Rodion Nahapetov	...	Victor Pototsky
Aleksandr Kalyagin	...	Kalyagin
Oleg Basilashvili	...	Yuzhakov
Konstantin Grigoryev	...	Fedotov
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yuri Bogatyryov	...	Maksakov
Mikhail Chigaryov
Valentin Komissarov		(as V. Kommissarov)
Vera Kuznetsova	...	Lyubov Andreevna
Nikita Mikhalkov
Nikolai Pastukhov	...	Writer
Gotlib Roninson
Yevgeni Steblov
Inna Ulyanova
Vadim Vilsky

Also Known As:

Раба любви (Soviet Union: Russian title)
A Slave of Love (International: English title)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color (Sovcolor) | Black and White (archive footage) (one scene)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | Argentina:Atp | Finland:K-16

Company:

Mosfilm

Movie Connections:

Spin off from Nechayannye radosti (1972)

It`s not a movie, it`s a mood

This movie performed a miracle - it captured a mood, an atmosphere so raw, full, that you are feeling the stuffy summer air, the slow dusty wind, candy-sweet smell of southern flowers in a hot small Krimean town. The fact that the revolution is coming closer makes it eary and subtly frightening, as if you know that there`s a needle in someone`s bouquet of camelias.

The acting is done in a way that you can`t believe it is not documentary, but film frames are like a picture frames, they airy and weightlessly capture fading scenes of decadent beauty. Then the violence comes and awakens the characters, they are silly,comical and immensely tragic at the same time.But even the shootings and some real documental footage don`t brake the atmosphiere, it only changes, darkens, like before the storm. All of it is symbolically captured in a scene in the garden, when the operator is trying to tell Olga that the old life is stale, unjust, senseless, the rush of wind runs over the park growing in strength along with the monologue. But she does not understand him, she thinks he`s just jealous and laughs in ignorance of the storms to come.