Credited cast: | |||
Lyudmila Gurchenko | ... | Vera | |
Oleg Basilashvili | ... | Platon Sergeyevich | |
Nikita Mikhalkov | ... | Andrey | |
Nonna Mordyukova | ... | Uncle Misha | |
Mikhail Kononov | ... | Nikolasha | |
Anastasiya Voznesenskaya | ... | Yulia | |
Tatyana Dogileva | ... | Marina | |
Olga Volkova | ... | Violetta | |
Aleksandr Shirvindt | ... | Shurik | |
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Raisa Etush | ... | Lyuda |
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Temurmalik Yunusov | ... | Melon vendor (as Temur Yunusov) |
Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
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Zhanna Aleksandrova | ||
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Ibragim Bargi | ... | (as I. Bargi) |
Viktor Bortsov | |||
Alla Budnitskaya | ... | (as A. Budnitskaya) |
Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty minute stop at Zastupinsk railway station. He meets Vera, a waitress, after he refuses to pay her for the disgusting food he doesn't even touch and misses his train due to police investigation of the incident. His passport is then accidentally taken away from him by Andrei, Vera's fiancé, and his money is stolen as he waits for the next train to Griboedov. Vera learns that Platon is about to get sentenced and sent to prison in the Far East for a car accident he isn't guilty for. During the few days that Platon has to spend in Zastupinsk he and Vera develop feelings for each other... Written by Denis Chebikin <chebikin@mit.edu>
i watch the actors, lyudmila as vera in particular, and i wish they could make more films that i could access. meryl streep, whom i like very much, hasn't got a thing on lyudmila; this is one vibrant and vivid actress with a face the camera loves to love.
the movie seemed very french to me; my wife thought Italian. at any rate it is not an American film. the sensibility is far more oblique and understated. i recall a stephen rea film about the ussr where he is a detective tracking down a serial killer; i think that movie really tries to portray what life must be like in Russia, but finally it is really just a cliché when compared to this film. this movie breathes 'other' and we must switch gears to attempt to see who these folk are and what they are about. a very fine bit of film making that satisfies all the way thru.