Mirror for a Hero (1987) User Reviews

Very good and profound story

[alex904 · 8/10 · 14 April 2007]

It's not a Perestroika movie like previous reviewer said. Funny enough his opinion was copied all over internet. This is a good and strong story about people trapped in a time loop in Stalin time. Funny and sad at times. It's probably hard to comprehend some twists in the story if you're unfamiliar with Russian and USSR history. However, it's not a historic movie. Obviously, main line is about grown up children judging their parents for things they've done int he past. In this case, 2 guys from present time (1987 year actually) found themself in 1930th. One of them was sentenced for responsibility at coal mine explosion. He's doing his best to destroy that coal mine in the past. Another guy meets his parents, pregnant mother and father... Enough of spoilers. :)

Bottom line. Good movie, maybe underrated in Russia, story may seem to be too straight for some people, but it makes people rethink the past and, what's more important, it's very moral and rememberable.

The Groundhog Day in USSR

[Efenstor · 10/10 · 29 January 2006]

Take any of the Andrey Tarkovsky's movies, take away all the art-houseness from it and you'll get "Zerkalo dlya geroya". Quite interesting that I watched this movie when was a child and didn't like it because I didn't understand a thing, watched it when I was a teenager and quite liked it but didn't understand it anyway and finally I've watched it now and found that it's a great movie with a good and deep idea.

The plot (no big spoilers): Young Sergey (Sergey Koltakov) and his old father are two quite different men: Sergey cannot understand why his father is so concerned about the other people's fates, about fates of towns and villages and the fate of the whole country. He finds him an old fool, but Sergey's own fate soon forces him to understand his father. On a show of the rock band "Nautilus Pompilius" (semi-underground at the Soviet times) he meets Andrey, an aged man who was once imprisoned for an incident on a coal mine that was under his management. After the show they take a walk in a park and suddenly discover that a movie is being made there. The two want to find a better place to see the movie-makers set and Andrey suggests one. The two run around a high concrete fence and Andrey stumbles at a thick wire stuck in the ground. He falls. Once he is up the both men walk to the end of the fence and suddenly find there is no park behind it: they see a steam engine and a militiaman in the uniform of Stalin times, they find themselves in a little coal-mining town they were both grown in. Soon Andrey begins to think that fate gives him a chance to prevent the accident he was imprisoned for, Sergey unwillingly discovers his father's generation for himself, their time, their lives and what they lived for.

Acting, as well as photography and direction is absolutely amazing. The scenes in the old coal mine are stunning and unforgettable. Very sensible and thoughtful movie that still doesn't leave a heavy trace as all the Tarkovsky's works. And of course, some knowledge of who Stakhanov and NKVD were would be very helpful if you want to understand everything.

Wow, that's quite a Mirror!

[ericoblair · 9/10 · 30 March 2012]

Proust meets "Groundhog Day" in a Donbass coal mining town of Stalinist Russia, with a soundtrack featuring Nautilus Pompilius doing "Goodbye America" – is it any wonder that Khotinenko's Mirror ranks as one of a half-dozen perestroika-era movies that have achieved must-see status for Russians, ex-Soviets, never-were-Soviets and the rest of us?

The high-dome version: Zerkalo/Mirror said two things well in 1987 and just as well today: (1) the past is more complex than you thought; and (2) you can't fix it but you can understand it better – which makes empathy possible and reconciliation within reach.

To describe much more is to deprive Mirror of some of its power to surprise, so enough said – OK, plus these extra credit questions: 1. Does the Mirror of the title reflect (as it were) A. Tarkovsky's Mirror of 1974? And 2. Is somebody trying to further Perestroika II by putting Perestroika I movies like this one on prime-time Moscow TV so frequently of late, as the reports have it? Isn't that a nice conspiracy theory to contemplate, for a change?

Right film

[pelemak · 10/10 · 26 February 2008]

Great movie. It is a film about ours frequently unfair relation to the parents, caused by the different reasons. Among which the various outlooks on life caused by change of epoch, problem of fathers and children. It seems to me, that the main message of a film - to be a grateful to the parents. Under any circumstances as it is written in precepts. Precisely also characters of people from miner's settlement on Donbass are brightly represented, details of their life and atmosphere are transferred. A window platband in a final fragment of a film is such as in the house of my grandmother, in one of the same miner's settlements nearby Donetsk. Impresses realism of scenes in coal mine. Huge gratitude to Vladimir Hotinenko, Nadezhda Kozhushanaya, Sergey Koltakov, Ivan Bortnik, Natal'ya Akimova, other excellent actors and cinematographers for a masterpiece. Final execution of Orthodox's "Nyne otpuschaeshi" is magnificent. The film has awards: The winner of a special prize of jury of the All-Union film festival in Baku (1988, for a film «the Mirror for the hero»). The winner of a prize of name Vittorio de Sica «For direction» on a film festival in Sorrento (1988). Please excuse for mistakes in English language.

A very interesting movie, for its time

[ollaer · 9/10 · 14 January 2007]

* Some of it may be a spoiler*

Two friends, typical average middle-class Soviet men of late 80s, are walking along when one of them trips on a rusty wire, sticking out of the ground. Miraculously, (and at first unknown to them) they are transfered some 40 years back, in year 1949, the zenith of Stalinist era. They are forced to re-live the same day in '49 over and over again (this movie was filmed some six years before Groundhog Day, and I wonder sometimes if it inspired it in some ways). They can't change the events but they themselves change, and find out what each of them is really worth. The movie title, translated in English, means "A Mirror for a Hero".

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[artlaub · 3 May 2004]

This movie is very redicules at first time seeing it, especially the first half of the movie, later its going a little bit boring but all in all a good movie I give him 7 of 10 points. Its a typical perestroika-movie. The first perestroika movies were in 1986 like w strelyajushej glushi or posledniy reportazh, but this movie is one of the first perestroika-movies, too. The story is interesting, which shows a new generation of russian movies, which were mid-late80's til mid 90's.



++++++