This Russian and French film was made just around the time the Soviet Union was ending and chaotically giving way to a capitalist Russia, and that's reflected over every inch of it. There's a cute premise -- a down-on-his-luck music teacher moves into a new apartment and discovers a literal window to Paris that literally only opens every twenty years.
This leads to some very fun, absurd comedy with Russians and French finding their way through the window and becoming very confused -- as well as a great deal of very self-conscious social commentary on the state of Russia at the time. This leads to some interesting contrasts, with the farcical often set against scenes of unhappy people on filthy streets. This contrast doesn't always sit easily, and i doesn't always increase the humor of what's going on but it does always leave an impression. Perhaps most striking is when Nicole finds herself suddenly in Leningrad/St Petersburg, and after some plain-old-hijinx, is confronted with the difficult-to-process sight of a man completely destroying a public phone booth just because nobody will stop him.
There's a delicate balance, and sometimes it sways far enough into commentary that the humor stops being sharp, or far enough into comedy that the commentary seems out of tune, but overall they are both strong veins that make their mark on the viewer.
Sergey Dontsov is great as a very likable hero for the piece, a shaggy, hard-luck music teacher who scorns the establishment but gets by because he is a pied-piper figure for children. Agnès Soral is very charming as Nicole, but while she works very amusingly as a running-gag neighbor who is constantly infuriated by Russian running through her apartment to get to Paris, she is not really developed enough as a character to make a great impact as a love interest.
But because of the charm of Dontsov and his rapport with the children, there is an emotional pull when he convinces them to come back to St Petersburg through the window. And the film winds up very difficult to forget, for its rather wild combination of the whimsical and the grim.
This leads to some very fun, absurd comedy with Russians and French finding their way through the window and becoming very confused -- as well as a great deal of very self-conscious social commentary on the state of Russia at the time. This leads to some interesting contrasts, with the farcical often set against scenes of unhappy people on filthy streets. This contrast doesn't always sit easily, and i doesn't always increase the humor of what's going on but it does always leave an impression. Perhaps most striking is when Nicole finds herself suddenly in Leningrad/St Petersburg, and after some plain-old-hijinx, is confronted with the difficult-to-process sight of a man completely destroying a public phone booth just because nobody will stop him.
There's a delicate balance, and sometimes it sways far enough into commentary that the humor stops being sharp, or far enough into comedy that the commentary seems out of tune, but overall they are both strong veins that make their mark on the viewer.
Sergey Dontsov is great as a very likable hero for the piece, a shaggy, hard-luck music teacher who scorns the establishment but gets by because he is a pied-piper figure for children. Agnès Soral is very charming as Nicole, but while she works very amusingly as a running-gag neighbor who is constantly infuriated by Russian running through her apartment to get to Paris, she is not really developed enough as a character to make a great impact as a love interest.
But because of the charm of Dontsov and his rapport with the children, there is an emotional pull when he convinces them to come back to St Petersburg through the window. And the film winds up very difficult to forget, for its rather wild combination of the whimsical and the grim.