Customer Reviews

Perestroika

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

 

 

This is a slow rambling movie narrated by an astrophysicist who returns to Moscow in 1992 after emigrating to USA 17 years earlier. His tale is a melange of picking up severed personal acquaintances, reestablishing dalliances and reconciling with the post-Soviet zeitgeist of Moscow. Sasha Greenberg (Sam Robards) is so nostalgic for the Moscow he knew as a youngster that he is quite unable to accept the new Russia. May be it is too tawdry and too giddy for him, but all of his former colleagues including his mentor Prof. Gross. (F. Murray Abraham) dote over his return and his fame. It is a stretch to go much beyond this return-of-the- homeboy story to allegory or lasting nuggets of wisdom.

Sasha expects much from his childhood dream town but finds that it has changed beyond both visual recognition and comprehension. There is freedom that is sometimes out of restraint, emerging mores and unfamiliar culture everywhere. Even among local citizens there is debate: some like these changes and other don't. Family structure has become fragile and some even wish for a return of the old order. Sasha flits from wife to girlfriend to wife, falls briefly in love with a girl 17 years younger, whom he could have fathered. One of his many concurrent loves is Helen (Ally Sheedy). His vodka-nicotine dependence is impressive. He is adored everywhere because he has returned even if only for a visit. His mentor waxes audibly at a party about finding happiness within and not be persuaded by the new or old Russia.

There is uncertainty about how well perestroika will work. In fact perestroika becomes a metaphor for restructuring which adolescence and middle age can bring on. Most get over this but some do not. Our protagonist wonders aloud if humans are inherently destructive of themselves and their planet. These debates, however, are not the focus of the film; they are set pari passu with banal daily life events of the major characters.

On the positive side, there are a few pieces of insightful, philosophical dialogue and pleasing vistas of local buildings and environs. The droning narratives tend to be tepid. They are better suited for a play or documentary rather than a movie. The past and the present visual sequences are technically seamless but also disturbingly confusing. I had difficulty deciphering the "now" and the "then." The overall impression I got is one of an important tale that is out of focus most of the time. This is why I chose a three star rating.

I rented this thinking it was the documentary of the same title directed by Robin Hessman. This is a poorly dubbed, difficult to follow film--NOT a documentary.