My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1986)
"Moy drug Ivan Lapshin" (original title)

Director:

Aleksey German

Writers:

Yuri German (novel), Eduard Volodarskiy,

Stars:

Andrei Boltnev, Nina Ruslanova, Andrey Mironov

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Andrei Boltnev	...	Ivan Lapshin
Nina Ruslanova	...	Natasha Adasova
Andrey Mironov	...	Khanin
Aleksei Zharkov	...	Okoshkin
Zinaida Adamovich	...	Patrikeyevna
Aleksandr Filippenko	...	Zanadvorov
Yuriy Kuznetsov	...	Superintendent
Valeriy Filonov	...	Pobuzhinskiy
Anatoli Slivnikov	...	Bychkov
Andrei Dudarenko	...	Kashin
Semyon Farada
Nina Usatova
Valeri Kuzin	...	Narrator (voice)
Lidiya Volkova
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yuri Aroyan

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

1930s | soviet union | multiple time frames | memory | child | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

26 September 1986 (Finland)

Also Known As:

My Friend Ivan Lapshin

Box Office

Budget:

$8,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lenfilm Studio

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film was shot in the early 1980s, but was not released until the perestroika reforms because it took an ironic look at Soviet idealism.

User Reviews

reflections of the Soviet past

A recollection from a Russian childhood becomes, in director Alexei Gherman's memory, a rambling fantasia of events in a small provincial town during the 1930s. The film is virtually plot less but rich in incidental detail, and like any nostalgic memory is oblique and selective, and often shadowed with a profound sense of regret. Viewers unfamiliar with Russian habits and history may be hard pressed to follow the director's near-documentary recreation of local events (spiced with occasional arcane, Fellini-esquire symbolism). What passes for a plot is allowed to develop in an offhand, almost inconsequential manner: an awkward love triangle shared by the title character (a local secret policeman) with a traveling actress and a journalist friend; a manhunt for an elusive criminal, and so forth. It's as if the characters were too personal for Gherman to see them become bogged down in a simple romance or conventional police procedural drama.