Dnevnik ego zheny (2000)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Aleksei Uchitel

Writer:

Dunya Smirnova (writer)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Plot:

A tragic story of love and loneliness - this is the unknown life of the great Russian writer Ivan Bunin...

Awards:

7 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Andrei Smirnov	...	Ivan Bunin
Galina Tyunina	...	His wife Vera
Olga Budina	...	Galina Plotnikova
Yevgeni Mironov	...	Leonid Gurov
Yelena Morozova	...	Marga Kovtun
Dani Kogan
Tatyana Moskvina	...	Sonya
Sergei Vinogradov	...	Alya
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anna Belova

Also Known As:

Дневник его жены (Russia)
His Wife's Diary (International: English title)

Runtime:

Czech Republic:110 min (Karlovy Vary Film Festival)

Country:

Russia

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:M

Company:

Goskino

Excellent movie, that couldn't step into the same Oscar water

It's a pity, but since "Tired by the sun", eastern European cinematography has lost a credit of trust. Previous year nominee for Oscar for best foreign language movie "East-West" and this year nominee from Russia (didn't make it to the "five best") "His wife's diary" are really well made and significantly acted movies. But they can't step into the same water. Even "Siberian Barber" three years ago had no chance to get a golden statue because of above mentioned film got it in 1995. But, honestly speaking, I can't say the euphoria (and interest at all) about incomprehensible Russian soul has gone. Soviet period keeps a lot of fates, a lot of personalities to make a good movie about. Ivan Bunin, Nobel Prize for literature winner, is just another example of that.

Whole story is about last years of a great writer. But it's not just Bunin's search of inspiration for the creativity by the means of other lovers. It's even not a love and passion triangle or polygon in Bunin's house ("You love me, I love him, he loves Galya, Galya loves Margo"). It's not only a course of life result and fear of something that hasn't been written about. It's an unbearable nostalgia and homesickness of an outcast generation that has never got home again (Bunin is buried in the Russian cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois).

Well directed (second movie at all for Alexei Uchitel), good casting (Andrei Smirnov as Bunin and Galina Tyunina as his wife), well tuned soundtrack and perfectly reflected mood of the time make tragic drama "His wife's diary" a very lyric, deeply philosophic and subtle movie.

9/10