Bumazhnyy soldat (2008)

Director:

Aleksei German Ml.

Writers:

Vladimir Arkusha (co-writer)
Aleksei German Ml. (screenplay)

Release Date:

13 November 2008 (Russia)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

In 1961, a Soviet medical officer is conflicted about his position overseeing the health of future cosmonauts.

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Chulpan Khamatova	...	Nina
Merab Ninidze	...	Dr. Daniel Pokrovsky
Anastasiya Sheveleva	...	Vera

Also Known As:

Бумажный солдат (Russia)
Paper Soldier (USA) (literal English title)

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

Russia

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Lenfilm Studios, St. Petersburg, Russia

Best of 2008? I don't get it

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I'll probably be shot down in flames for this but I was tired and glad when this movie ended. It's been called "the Russian Right Stuff" and "the best movie of 2008" but I just can't see it.

It's a sad, soulful Russian movie about a handsome doctor stuck out in a wilderness that's hardly distinguishable from a gulag, with a few others, including his faithful mistress, working on a project that is almost entirely offscreen. The unconvincing tailcone of a rocket slowly wheels past, and near the end two of the cast (one called "Yuri" - Gagarin?) pose in spacesuits that are a couple of notches better than the one in "Robot Monster", but hardly look waterproof, let alone airtight. Otherwise, there's nothing to tell you it's anything to do with space travel. He gets very depressed and sick, goes back briefly to his wife in Moscow, she follows him back to the gulag, and everyone is embarrassed when she meets the mistress, but his ill-health makes them sink their differences.

There are one or two shots that are stunning for their sheer improbability, like a distant lift-off behind a stoical camel against a vast plain of slush. I'm not asking for SF bells and whistles or bleeps and roars and distorted cheeks, but if they wanted a movie about character, they could have set this one all on a collective farm. Space travel is too big a subject to push (literally) into the distant background like this.

And all the doctors smoke like chimneys.