This must have been the first movie I ever saw. It was showing at a small art house theater in New Haven Connecticut. Marie-Louise was mesmerizing to the eyes of a five year old. The Second World War affected the lives of our family and of all our neighbors but not in the cataclysmic way of families all over Europe. After more than 60 years this affecting wartime story of a child's escape by train, desperately trying to protect one cherished keepsake, is still powerfully vivid to me. The next two films I recall were Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North, and Man of Aran. I've recently seen both of those again. I wish Marie-Louise were available today.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Sztálin menyasszonya
(1991)
Painful view of village life in the Soviet Union
8 April 2006
At a dusty crossroads in the Soviet Union villagers surrender their possessions - a horse, a samovar, a goat - to the state. The train which takes them away brings to the village a physically and mentally handicapped woman, barely able to speak. She makes herself bracelets of burrs and studies herself in a cracked and cloudy mirror. Befriended by very few, teased and tormented by many she seeks protection at a huge portrait of Stalin. The children taunt her as Stalin's girlfriend. Far from Moscow, minor state functionaries fear scandal from poor Paranya who crosses herself in front of the portrait. The all powerful state which provides every family a cabbage one day, a melon the next, which gives a citizen the job of guarding waste is threatened by a flaxen-haired, childlike woman whose only clothing is a burlap sack. The English subtitles are sparse and rudimentary with some errors.
Tell Your Friends