Zivot a neobycejna dobrodruzstvi vojaka Ivana Conkina (1994)

Director:

Jirí Menzel

Writers:

Zdenek Sverák (screenplay) and
Vladimir Vojnovich (novel)

Release Date:

9 November 1994 (France)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Set in a small Ukrainian village during the outbreak of war with Germany in 1941 Private Chonkin, not overly endowed with intelligence...

Plot Keywords:

1941 | Plane Wreck | Military Spoof | Uniform | Stalinism

Awards:

1 win & 7 nominations

Cast

Gennadi Nazarov	...	Ivan Chonkin
Zoya Buryak	...	Njura
Vladimir Ilyin	...	Golubev
Valeriy Zolotukhin	...	Kilin
Aleksei Zharkov	...	Gladisev
Yuri Dubrovin	...	Volkov
Sergey Garmash	...	Miljaga
Zinoviy Gerdt	...	Stalin
Marián Labuda	...	Opalikov
Mariya Vinogradova	...	Granny Dunia
Tatyana Gerbachevskaya	...	Afrodita
Lyubov Rudneva	...	Kapa
Ivan Ryzhov	...	Shapkin
Vyacheslav Molokov	...	General Drynov
Nikolai Marchenko	...	Borisov

Also Known As:

Il soldato molto semplice Ivan Chonkin (Italy)
Les aventures d'Ivan Tchonkine (France)
Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin

Runtime:

Czech Republic:106 min | UK:111 min | Argentina:114 min

Country:

Czech Republic | UK | France | Italy | Russia

Language:

Russian | Czech

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 | Argentina:13

Company:

Canal+

Amusing vision of WWII from satellite perspective . . .

. . . the "satellite" being that of Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic. Jiri Menzel's earlier film, the 1969 LARKS ON A STRING (SKRIVANCI NA NITI) was banned for 21 years. When it was finally released in 1990 it won top price at the Berlin film festival. CHONKIN was released the same year as FORREST GUMP and there are some thematic similarities to M*A*S*H and CATCH-22. Along with many sly (and some not-so-sly) jabs at Soviet bureaucracy and military incompetence the film supplies some interesting views of human nature and shows how a slight change of perspective can skew reality beneficially or detrimentally.

While some aesthetes may complain the film is not as refined as earlier Menzel films the intellectual content is there . . . it just tends to be camouflaged with all the laughter. Although a Czech production, CHONKIN was filmed in Russian. There were a goodly number of Russians in the audience where I saw the film. Audience laughter had interesting patterns depending on the placements of the subtitles, which often appeared in English before the Russian lines were completely delivered. One of the nice things about subtitled films (if everything is, indeed subtitled) is that you needn't worry about dialogue drowned by laughter. And there was laughter a-plenty at this screening:)