Customer Reviews

East-West

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I saw this movie at a cinema in Southern California, surrounded by elderly Russian immigrants. It had such an emotional impact that at least one lady was overwhelmed and required physical assistance leaving the theatre when it ended. "East-West" is a stunningly open Russian/French-produced film about life in post-war USSR. Although the characters are composites, the story is based on cruel historical events. When Stalin "welcomes back" all expatriated Russians, Alexei is overjoyed to leave his long self-exile in France and sail to his beloved homeland. Aboard ship, he and his fellow passengers celebrate their imagined homecoming to the glorious "Workers' Paradise". None of them has any idea of the brutal changes which have occurred under "Uncle Joe's" regime. Only betrayal awaits them. Upon the instant of their arrival, they are thrust into a nightmare of totalitarianism from which there is seemingly no escape. Many of the returning countrymen are arrested or executed as "traitors of the state". Alexei, as a physician, is considered valuable and spared, although his French wife comes under immediate suspicion and surveillance. How their sudden culture shock, loss of human rights, miserable living conditions, persecution, and bleak future inexoribly erode their marriage is heart-breaking. The film would be overwhelmingly depressing, but love, hope, heroism, and sacrifice can prevail even under the iron hand of Stalin. I highly recommend this video. Although unflinchingly honest about the Soviet system, it treats the long-suffering Russian people with sensitivity and compassion.

This beautiful movie is about a couple and their child's experience living in and trying to escape from Stalinist Russia. The husband (Alexei, played by Oleg Menshikov) is Russian, and his wife Marie is French. When the Soviet Union decides to call back its emigrees, they return to Russia with their little child, As soon as they return, they realize that it is not as they had thought it would be. They are immediately interogated, terrorized, and threatened by the state. In the poverty of Kiev, they befriend Sasha (Sergei Bodrov Jr.), a swimmer, who is full of potential, and who wants out of Russia too. As the story progresses, they realize that they have a chance to escape... The ensueing drama is intense, and great sacrifices are made... Suspenseful, and emotional, this movie is a must see. The Russian background is beautiful, the acting superb, and the story touching. A must see for anyone who appreciates foreign films.

The story of one family's sacrifices for one another makes you value that which so many of us take for granted. Not only is this film an excellent recreation of life in Post WWII Russia, but it also has you cheering on the characters as you follow the story of Alexei, a Russian emmigrant who fled Russia only to return many years later with his family following the end of the second World War, Marie, his French wife, and their son. I appreciated how the film realistically showed that families weren't perfect, and that families did not necessarily mean blood relations, but instead those you loved and cared for. Catherine Deneuve is as strong as ever as she places an actress who tries to help Alexei and Marie escape the horrors they find in Russia. This film was not suprisingly nominated for Best Foreign Film 1999. For French speakers, it's easy to follow, despite the captions, and exciting to watch when you realize how much of the language you can grasp and understand. At least, it was for me. If you want a deeply moving film, then this is the one for you.

Though "East-West" (originally "Est-Ouest") looks very political at first sight, the fact is that it handles with much universal theme, which surely moved the voters of the Academy and the Golden Globe Award to give it a deserved nomination for Best Foreign Film in 2000. For all its apparent flaws, the film does not fail to move your heart in the end, making you think about how much people can take under the severest conditions to protect what you love.

After WW2, many exiles from Russia came back to their native country, and among them a doctor Alexei (Oleg
Menchikov, popular Russian actor) and his wife Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire). But as they land on the harbor of Odessa, they learn that everything is a lie. Deprived of her passport, and suspected as a spy sent from the West, Marie decides to return to France. While she survives the unhappy life in Kiev, being gradually estranged from Alexei, and her secret plans all end in disastrous results, her husband seeks for another solution. It soon becomes clear to them that it takes much longer time than they first expected.

"East-West" at its best shows the assured view on a family in this extreme situation, and their reaction to the harsh moment of reality. Real history gives strong support as a backgraond, but what we are impressed with is Marie's desperate and even manipulating ways of facing the reality, and Alexei's more comlicated, apparently cowardly action to autocratic rules during the Cold War. The changing relations between the husband and the wife is fastened by Bonnaire's strong performance, which suitably matches Menchikov's seemingly calm, resigned face. Those two actors with a good story is the best virture of the film.

There are flaws in this film, some say, and in fact the script seems sometimes melodramatic. Some reviewers might complain the loss of credibility at several points, but as I don't know much about the facts about the historical events, I can't criticize those moments when we see a Russian soldier killing an innocent victim on the spot at Odessa, or a KGB officier torturing Marie tearing her passport apart. It is certain that Russian bureaucrats look like caricature, but how could I know? Let me say this way: the film IS melodramatic, but for all that the film does not fail to grab your heart.

Whatever the complaint may be, the last scene pays off. And pays off very much. The film might have been better if it had taken a little longer time to bring everything to this conclusion. (I imagined there might be a longer director's cut somewhere in studio.) But, remember, the emotional power of "East-West" is beyond a doubt. Helped by the grand score of Patrick Doyle ("Bridget Jones' Diary" "Sense and Sensibility") and moody photography of Laurent Dailland, "East-West" is a triumph.

A Russian swimmer Sacha, one of the key characters of the film, is played by Serguei Bodrov Jr., son of Serguei Bodrov, co-writer of this film and director of "Prisoner of the Mountains" and "The Quickie."

Regis Wargnier (who also directed the marvelous "Indochine") gives us a wrenching story of a man who returns to the post-war Soviet Union with his French wife and son, and finds himself in the midst of a Stalinist nightmare. There is much pathos to the tale, but it's also a heart-pounding thriller at times. I haven't been so caught up in a film in many years.

The cinematography (Laurent Daillant) is terrific and the score (Patrick Doyle) gorgeous. The cast, down to the last bit player is exceptional. Sandrine Bonnaire and Serguei Bodrov Jr. are absolutely superb, and Oleg Menchikov ! He was fabulous in "Prisoner of the Mountains" and "Burnt by the Sun", but here gives a subtle, many layered portrait of a man trapped by fate...perhaps his best and most astounding performance of all.

A complex story that spans a decade, the editing is so good that the pieces fit seamlessly and the pacing flows...however, it's a film that should be seen more than once, as a lot falls into place on subsequent viewings.

This is one I'm glad I own...for its glimpse into a period of history, its brilliant performances, and the sheer beauty of what a film can be when at its best. It's about freedom, the will to survive, and most of all, about a man's love that goes beyond his own needs.

I am only 15 years old, and have been seeing foreign movies though for a couple of years now. My mother started taking me at a very early age. When I came out of the movie theater, I was drained, was dazed from the epic that I had just watched. The movie takes place in 1945, after the end of WWII when Russia issued an annoucement for Russian emigres in the West to return home, and nothing would be done against them. The Communists said to all returning people's, that they would have a wonderful life, and jobs in the Soviet Union. Alexi is a Russian who went to France and married his French wife Marie. They return with their son, but have no idea at all things would be that way. As soon as they dock in Odessa, the group from the ship is either executed or imprisoned. They are lucky and get to Kiev. Marie wants to get out soon after they arrive. As it happens she lives there for 10 years, with much difficulties, problems, and life altering changes. I highly recomend this gripping movie.

This movie which is set back at the time of Stalinist insanity within the Soviet Union, is the story of a man, going back to the "motherland", with his family, to serve to build a good society. The realities of Stalinist paranoia and brutality quickly destroy any hope of redeeming the choice this family made. The man, far from being an idiot, loves his wife and child more than his own life and asperations. He seeks to find a way, to remove his family from this tragically sick, insane environment. It is a tragic story of an enduring love which overcomes the delusionary ideologies that human beings can be managed and controlled like some "resource." It is truly poetic in form, cinematography and story. A must see for anyone interested in something more than just the standard fare of the movies. It reminds me of the recent "Cry the Beloved Country."

It's a shame this wonderful film seems to have gone out of print. Though not based on a true story, there were many people like Dr. Aleksey Golovin and his wife Marie, Sasha Vasiliyev, and Gabrielle living in the decade immediately after WWII. The film opens with an extended shot panning over the waves, setting up the important recurring motif of water in the story. A boatload of Russian-born natives are returning to their homeland from France, having accepted the invitation by Stalin to any ex-patriates who left in 1917 to come home, with no hard feelings, and to start over again in rebuilding the nation. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Russian history would know they were walking right into a trap, but the people on the boat sincerely believed that things would be different now. As it turns out, only Aleksey, Marie, and their young son Seryozha are spared execution or imprisonment after debarking, although Marie is initially accused of being a foreign spy. Immediately she realises that coming there was a mistake, and doesn't seem to fully grasp the danger she's putting herself in by trying to leave or even by thinking she can leave. She never fully gets used to their life in a cramped apartment in Kiyev, and befriends young Sasha, who moves into their room after the arrest and death of his grandmother Anastasiya, who raised him after his parents were arrested and executed as "enemies of the people" a decade earlier. Sasha, a promising young swimmer, also is longing to escape to freedom in the West, and this idea of freedom is so important to him that he'll go to any lengths to achieve it, even if he might be risking his life. The Golovins' marriage has become troubled, and after Aleksey has begun an affair with Olga, one of the many people in the apartment, Marie begins her own affair with Sasha, who is over ten years her junior. (I wish there were more depictions of romances like this in the movies, an older woman with a much-younger man.) They decide that Sasha will defect first, and then manage to get in touch with Marie's family back in France, who will arrange for her to escape. They're also being helped by Gabrielle, a left-wing French actress who is touring in the Soviet Union and putting herself on the line as well to help them to escape. Being the Soviet Union, of course, particularly in this ten-year period after WWII, things don't work out exactly according to their plans, but the dream of freedom remains, and even persecution and a term in the GULAG don't stop Marie's plans to somehow, someday, escape, no matter what the cost.

This film, although it was directed by a Frenchman, really has the feeling of being a Russian film. The constant fear, paranoia, deprivations, and lack of privacy are keenly felt, as are the working and living conditions in the Soviet Union at this time. This was also a multi-lingual production; the languages spoken by the cast and crew were French, Russian, Bulgarian, English, and Ukrainian, and most of the film was shot in Kiyev, Ukraine, and Sofia, Bulgaria. The actors used are also wonderful. Aleksey is played by Oleg Menshikov, one of the finest young Russian actors working today. He speaks all of his French lines so well and fluently that one would never suspect, until hearing the audio commentary, that he really had to memorise all of those lines phoenetically and doesn't speak or understand a word of French. Marie is Sandrine Bonnaire, who is very popular in France and a masterful actor. Gabrielle is played by Catherine Deneuve, who is quite a legend in France. And Sasha is played by Sergey Bodrov, Jr., who was one of Russia's best and most popular rising stars in the Nineties and early Aughts. (He was also quite handsome.) Sadly, he was killed in an avalanche in September 2002 while shooting his latest movie. Sergey was very effective and convincing as young Sasha, going through all of the emotions the character had to go through, even when, as is pointed out in the commentary, he had to do something that was totally against his nature in real life, like get really angry and confrontational. Extras are an audio commentary by director Régis Wargnier and screenwriter Sergey Bodrov, Sr., trailers, and talent files for Sandrine Bonnaire, Régis Wargnier, and Catherine Deneuve. The soundtrack is also incredibly masterful, powerful, and moving.

This is a highly-recommended film for not only those interested in Russian history but also for anyone who appreciates a good suspenseful historical drama. It's about the lives of individual people and how they were affected by what was going on in the Soviet Union in these terrifying years of stepped-up repression and fear, after the brief lull in terror and paranoia that had taken place during WWII, making daily life in the Soviet Union as tenuous and nightmarish as it had been during the Thirties. And though it does have many authentic Russian touches, it does have a number of French touches as well, reminding the viewer that it's also the story of a Frenchwoman trapped in a world not her own, something which also gives it a somewhat lighter touch that one might expect from a Russian film. As the title implies, this film truly is a blending of East and West in more ways than one.

Yes this is a good movie, and all the other positive comments. But what I find unique in East-West is the tangible sense of the foreboding, the sinister, the fearful undercurrent of distrust and danger that surely pervaded every encounter one had with others under the Soviet regime. The constant awareness that the next moment may find oneself whisked off to the Gulag, or one's loved ones seen never again. In many movies you can see the actors with this sense; in this movie you feel it yourself. For all of us who can hardly avoid taking freedom for granted, this needs to be felt.

A gripping movie which revolved around a young family that returned home to USSR from France to rebuild their homeland. Much hardship awaited them under the Stalin regime. Eyes & ears were everywhere. Betrayal & deception were common occurrences as people fought for privileges. Under an enormous strain, the marriage fall apart. The wife was looking for ways to escape from USSR & she found solace in a young guy, whose mother got presecuted as a capitalist spy for speaking French with her. The husband, on the other hand, befriended the super of the flats that he shared with the rest of the occupants. But hope never died & after many years of patience, with the assistance of a prominent French actress that they befriended, freedom was knocking on the door. Only till the end did we get the full picture of the sacrifice that the husband made for the love of his family. A long-winded movie but allowed us to capture a glimpse of what went thru Russians's mind during those tumultous period. Worth watching for historical buff like myself