Russian Movies?

Zascar

Strange question but are there any well known Russian movies? I quite like world cinema, watched plenty of french etc movies with Subtitles. Looking for a good Russian movie that I'll be able to find with subtitles.

LittleBook

Well "Nochnoy dozor" (Night Watch) and "Denevnoy dozor" (Day Watch) leap to mind ... Night Watch being the highest grossing Russian film ever. I can recommend Night Watch (vampire hunting in Moscow) but I haven't seen Day Watch yet, have it recorded though.

You could look into the work of Andrei Tarkovsky ... Solaris is his most well know ... a sci-fi which was adapted by Steven Soderbergh in 2002.

Mr Littlebook highly recommends "Idi i smotri" (Come and See) but says it's deeply harrowing so I've not gotten around to watching it yet myself.

The Battleship Potemkin is another really famous one, silent but amazing with the orchestral score.

Here's the list of Empire magazine's 100 Best Films of World Cinema, you can see some of the film's I've mentioned there. There may be other Russian ones.

builttospill

Well Andrei Tarkovsky is the greatest director of all time and each one of his films are masterpieces.

My personal favourite is Stalker.

When you watch his films you realise how true art can be produced through cinema while he just makes everything else seem fickle.

Some of his films can be hard to get through but they are worth it and you come out the other side more enlightened, wise and inspired.

Morlar

In addition to the ones already mentioned there are lots of great contemporary russian films, Aleksei Balabanov's


'Brother' & 'Brother 2' are good examples, Voina (War) is another:

It is such a shame that Sergey Bodrov died so young - he was an outsdanding russian actor.

Svolochi/Bastards - not necessarily historically accurate but interesting recently made WW2 film :



9th Company - a true story of the last unit left behind in Afghanistan is another I would strongly recommend :

Nolanger

Cranes are flying and Shadows of forgotten ancestors should be in every top 100 movie list.

kraggy

This is worth a look. The bar scene at the beginning is brilliant.

4

losthorizon

Burnt by the Sun is another great Russian Movie. Its set during 1936 when Stalin was in power and the purges are just begining. A retired war hero is enjoying his peace in the countryside when.....

It won an Oscar in 1995 for Best Foreign Film

paulosham

builttospill wrote: »

Well Andrei Tarkovsky is the greatest director of all time and each one of his films are masterpieces.

My personal favourite is Stalker.

When you watch his films you realise how true art can be produced through cinema while he just makes everything else seem fickle.

Some of his films can be hard to get through but they are worth it and you come out the other side more enlightened, wise and inspired.

^ This. Stalker is fantastic.

Paparazzo

Solaris and Andrei Rublev. Haven't seen the latter myself, but Solaris is weird and definitely worth a watch.

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Renn

The Return



Amazing film that doesn't get enough love. Think Zvyagintsev got it bang on here. Loaded with allegories and religious symbolism, the cinematography is great and it remains in your mind for a long time after. Recommended.

BigBenRoeth

I'd say you should watch The Battleship Potemkin first

Here's the list of Empire magazine's 100 Best Films of World Cinema, you can see some of the film's I've mentioned there. There may be other Russian ones.

Jayus just had a look at that list,that is some disgrace

johnny_ultimate

Can't recommend Tarkovsky enough either! Stalker would be my favourite too, simply a hypnotic, beautiful, haunting film that's totally worth the lengthy time investment. His other stuff is great too, but Stalker is possibly his most approachable, most rewarding film (although have yet to get around to Andrej Rublev). The Sacrifice is also a fantastic watch, with stunning cinematography from Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist.

Russian Ark is worth a watch from a purely technical perspective. Haven't watched the entire thing yet, but from what I've seen it's a stunning accomplishment in one beautifully choreographed take. However, a lot of people seem quite dismissive of the actual content, but as it's been a while since I saw a short snippet can't comment, but it's a rather dense walk through a Russian history museum.

Mickeroo

Nightwatch and Daywatch are decent enough if you fancy some fantasy action type thing!!

Otis Driftwood

They havnt been mentioned and probably wouldnt be everyones cup of tea but some Russian movies Id recommend were made by Andrey Iskanov.Nails and Visions of Suffering are 2 experimental horrors by him.His other one is Philosophy of a Knife.Its about the Japanese Unit 731 that perpetrated some of the vilest experiments ever reported on human subjects during World War 2.Be warned,its over 4 hours long,is unflinchingly brutal and is an massive endurance test,well worth sticking with though.

Richard Dower

Is Stalker based on the Russian PC game?...or did i just make an eejit of myself?

johnny_ultimate

Richard Dower wrote: »

Is Stalker based on the Russian PC game?...or did i just make an eejit of myself?

Well, it predates the game by a few decades, so no...

But the game is based on a book which also inspired the film, so they are all thematically similar concerning a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

losthorizon

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Russian Ark is worth a watch from a purely technical perspective. Haven't watched the entire thing yet, but from what I've seen it's a stunning accomplishment in one beautifully choreographed take. However, a lot of people seem quite dismissive of the actual content, but as it's been a while since I saw a short snippet can't comment, but it's a rather dense walk through a Russian history museum.

Russian Ark - Avoid like the plague. Yes it was done in one take but its an awful film. Its just so pretentious and boring.

Rope by Hitchcock was done in two or three takes and is a fantastic film. If you want to see a film in "real time" and "acted out" watch that plus its a great story but sorry its not russian.

bonerm

losthorizon wrote: »

Russian Ark - Avoid like the plague. Yes it was done in one take but its an awful film. Its just so pretentious and boring.

Agree with this. Pretentious pile of crap.

The only Russian film I've seen that wasn't literally painful to watch was Idi i smotri. Like all Russian movies it's humourless, dour, and full of miserable people but in this movie for a change they actually seem to have a genuine reason for being this way.

I think I just cannot 'get' Russian art when it comes to literature or cinema. It's humourless and joyless. I think Frank McCourt put it best when he said a typical Russian novel goes on for 911 pages and when when the protagonist finally kills himself on page 902 you find yourself wishing he'd done it on page 4.

Morlar

bonerm wrote: »

Like all Russian movies it's humourless, dour, and full of miserable people . . .

Likewise All American movies are full of vapid blonde airheads.

My experience of Russian cinema is different from yours. The humour may be culturally different but there is a lot of humour there.

Decuc500

I've seen a couple of Aleksey Balabanov's films recently, Cargo 200 and Morphia.

I thought Morphia was fantastic, a blackly humorous story of a doctor in a small Siberian village in the early 20th century sliding into a morphine addiction. Very dark but atmospheric film.