Orphan Anna lives with her aunt Aliona in the Russian district of Ryazan. One day, both women meet Wassily, a rich farmer, and his son Ivan; both youngsters fall in love at once, but Wassily is also very taken with Anna. Wassily has a daughter, Wassilissa who loves Nicolas, a poor smith, a relationship that Wassily doesn't like at all. In order to marry off his son, Wassily organizes a meeting with all the town's single frauleins and out of the blue, destiny will reunite Anna and Ivan again and they finally will be married. However, the peaceful life of the town will be broken with the beginning of the First World War, a war that Ivan must join, leaving his wife alone with his father
"Baby Ryazanskie" ( Women Of Ryazan ) (1927) is a very remarkable and exceptional silent film directed by Dame Olga Preobrazhenskaya, a Russian woman filmmaker with a short but intense career and who was considered a feminist pioneer in the Russian film industry. This film was shot in the district of Ryazan and exceptionally photographed by Herr Konstantin Kuznetsov, and abounds with lyrical and beautiful images which high light the drama that Anna, the main character, must undergo. The film might have been a simple country story, one of those folk oeuvres beautifully filmed that takes pleasure in the landscape but neglects the story telling. Happily that is not the case of "Baby Ryazanskie" because although the Ryazan district and the way of life of their peasants are important subjects in the film, Dame Preobrazhenskaya tells a universal story with those local elements. Troubled family relationships and a stormy conflict of sentiments leading to tragic ending are conditions that know no boundaries because human nature is unpredictable, even in Russia.
Another outstanding and interesting fact about "Baby Ryazanskie" is that the film is free of propaganda and without a trace of a communist message. Those same Ryazan peasants in the Politburo hands or with a lesser director would be tempting indeed to use for those purposes. Dame Preobrazhenskaya freely filmed her story without political hints or impositions that might have spoiled the quality or the artistic interest of the auteur in depicting a classical melodrama of conflicting human sentiments set in rural Russia.
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must have a meeting with his women of Deutschland.
Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/
