Customer Reviews

First Love [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a film I've been looking for on VHS for some time, and I will purchase it as soon as possible.

Although panned by critics when it opened in theaters in 1970, I thought it was a masterpiece of a certain kind. What kind, it is difficult to explain, as it defies easy categorization -- a compelling story of adolescent coming-of-age, based on a tale by Turgenev, this film is at once dream-like and atmospheric, poignant and ironic. It is informed with a sixties' "altered consciousness" sense of cosmic comedy mixed with profundity and pathos.

A young man encounters, in one summer, not only a cast of jaded, comic, pathetic, and ironic characters outside of himself, but he also confronts the first torments of love, the first view of his parents beyond anything he could have dreamed of before, and a scathing confrontation with himself, which will remind many men, young or old, of their own youthful torments.

Perhaps because of its unconventional approach, mixing narrative and metaphor so freely, critics had difficulty in giving this wonderful film its due. I recommend it.

I first saw this film in 1970 and discussed it in my college interview. At the time it made a deep impression upon me since I was feeling my first sexual yearnings. A russian noblewoman manipulates the love of a teenager, who cannot understand the pull of such overwhelming emotion. A stolen kiss, skin brushing against a cheek, a whisper from a beautiful woman seemed to me, the most incredible thing. Very sensuous...indeed the very essence of raw sexual allure. Compared to so many trivial coming of age movies and so many trivial sex scenes, this film based on a Turgenev story is a winner.