Flee (2021)

I was not aware that a nearly fully animated feature with voice actors not all playing themselves could be called a documentary, tho some have come close. Waltz with Bashir may have been the first I saw that truly qualified. Anyway, I watched Flee partly to complete another year's worth of Academy Best Animated Feature nominees and partly because, on a flight where I had trouble hearing the dialog through earbuds, subtitles came in handy.

Amin (not his real name) lives in Denmark for quite some time without telling anyone, even his fiancé (not fiancée), what his life was like before. As the trauma interferes with his conviction to marry, he finally opens up to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen about how his family of six had to get away from the rigors of wartime Afghanistan and then Soviet Russia when he was a teen. For most of the story, they were not all together.

White Nights (1985)

The title refers to the far-northern phenomenon of sunlight way into summer nights. Sure enough, the story takes place in that setting, and while the white nights themselves are not important to the plot, they serve as a symbol of confusion and frustration. I had not known this when I saved the DVD for the start of daylight saving time.

Famed first-generation American dancer Nikolai (Mikhail Baryshnikov himself) has a stroke of bad luck when his malfunctioning commercial plane (I assume this was never an in-flight movie) has to make an emergency stop in the USSR, from which he defected. In his unsuccessful haste to hide his identity, he does not brace himself for a rough landing and thus gets injured and knocked out. When he wakes, he's not in prison in the conventional sense, but neither is he allowed to go much of anywhere unless he agrees with the proposal of Col. Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski) to dance for Soviets again. In the meantime, in addition to being on camera, he's supervised by roommates Raymond (Gregory Hines), a stage actor and tap dancer who defected in the opposite direction; and Darya (Isabella Rosselini's U.S. debut), Raymond's wife. Can Nikolai persuade them to take the risks needed to let him flee, bearing in mind that the KGB could very well claim he died from his crash injuries?

Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)

I think I had two main reasons to put this on my queue: The Academy nominated it for Best Picture, and the early '70s were a good time for dramas. Of course, it wasn't so good if you wanted a happy ending. And once I realized who the title characters were, an unhappy ending was a foregone conclusion.

You don't need to be well versed in history to recall that Nicholas II (Michael Jayston) was the last tsar of Russia. This movie begins in 1904 with him and his wife (Janet Suzman) welcoming a son after four daughters. That may be the last time we see them both happy, and it's not for long, as they learn of little Alexei's hemophilia -- terrible news for anyone and all the worse for an heir apparent to the throne, whom the public should not see as fragile. Little do they know how moot that point is, thanks to growing unrest in the empire. For the next nine years, Alexandra entrusts her son's health to the mysticism of Grigori Rasputin (Tom Baker of Doctor Who fame), without her husband's approval.

Paris Song (2018)

This is one of those films too obscure for its own Wikipedia page, tho it gets a brief mention on director Jeff Vespa's. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if not for its inclusion in a Jewish film festival. (Judaism doesn't really feature in the plot.) But the few dozen people to have rated it on IMDb had given it an 8.0, and the plot sounded interesting. Besides, Vespa himself would be at the theater to talk about it, so my parents and I went.

In 1925, Amre Kashaubayev is invited from the Kazakh Steppe to represent the USSR in a sing-off in Paris. He accepts, partly because he wants to call the outside world's attention to the Kazakh people, many of whom want independence. Of course, Soviet officials would prefer that Leonid Sobinov place higher. They don't want Kashaubayev consorting much with westerners like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Lee Abbott. And they definitely don't want him making contact with Mustafa Shokay, exiled leader of the Kazakh independence movement. You should have a good idea what happens.

Julia (1977)

Every so often, I move all the entries on my Netflix queue with a listed wait time to the top and see what comes next. If not for this method, I might have put Julia off indefinitely. How often am I in the mood for a dark-looking '70s drama whose title is a woman's name? Still, it had acting awards, an Academy Best Picture nomination, and direction by the seemingly underrated Fred Zinnemann, so I'd have to see it eventually.

In the '30s, Lillian Hellman (Jane Fonda) is a rather famous writer, thanks in part to schmoozing with the even more famous Dashiell Hammett (Jason Robards). But an old friend, Julia (Vanessa Redgrave), recruits her for a mission that would normally go to a non-Jewish nobody: smuggling funds for the resistance in Nazi territory. Julia's too injured to do the task herself. It's too bad they couldn't meet again under better circumstances; indeed, meeting at all is iffy....

Ivan's Childhood (1962)

Well, what do you know: I saw another Andrei Tarkovsky picture after all. Admittedly, I missed his name when I selected it, but there's no missing the bleak imagery on the poster for what has also been marketed as My Name Is Ivan. You can tell right away that Ivan does not have an enviable childhood.

Ivan is 12 but rarely acts that young, being eager to serve the USSR against invading Germans. His motive: revenge for his family, as we see in flashbacks. His advantage: small stature for spy stealth. His disadvantage: age-based lack of respect as an equal by adult allies, who'd rather send him to a military academy than to the front. He spends a lot of time waiting impatiently for a task, seemingly forgetful that there are much worse things in war than boredom or a sense of futility.

Come and See (1985)

Clicking my "ussr" tag at the bottom will show you how much trouble I've had appreciating Soviet filmography. When it's not disagreeably propagandist, it tends to be slow, ponderous, and cheap. But one coming near the end of the Soviet Union's lifetime might be different.

If the title evokes childlike innocence, that's appropriate yet probably unintentional irony: It comes from a Revelation line about apocalyptic destruction. CaS starts with teen boys digging in Belorussian mud for lost rifles so that they can join the Soviet militia. Yes, that was all it took. One, Florya (or Flyora, depending on the source), succeeds despite his family's strong wishes. As a junior recruit, he doesn't get the heavier duties like, y'know, battle. But in what seems like a couple of days, he comes to see quite enough carnage for one lifetime.

Solaris (1972)

After Andrei Rublev and Stalker, I thought I might never take another chance on director Andrei Tarkovsky, especially with one of his long works (167 minutes). But since this piece was remade in the U.S. in 2002, it seemed to have more potential to appeal to my tastes. Besides, I was running low on Halloween-type options, and a sci-fi with someone appearing to come back from the dead, however unscarily, could fill the void.

Based on a Polish book, the film takes place mostly on a space station orbiting the titular planet. When some scientists go missing and another reports seeing a person whom their instruments do not detect, psychologist Kris Kelvin accepts an invitation to investigate. He finds the remaining researchers negligent, unhelpful, and bleak if not self-destructive. More importantly, he too sees people who shouldn't be there -- including his departed wife, Hari, who doesn't just appear but behaves lovingly toward him. Clearly, something external is causing the insanity, if that's the right word.

Dersu Uzala (1975)

This Akira Kurosawa film easily stands out from all the rest that I've seen. Not only is it based on a true story; it's set in Siberia, with USSR actors speaking what I can only assume to be Russian. No Toshirō Mifune this time -- or anyone else you're likely to recognize. I figured the director had some interest in that country after adapting The Idiot, but this is still a great departure.

The story follows Army Captain Arsenev, leader of a topographic expedition troop starting in 1902. They run into several episodes of trouble, mostly in the form of nature, but an aged Nanai trapper by the title name has the woodland smarts to help them out. Arsenev and Uzala become friends. Too bad Uzala is too much of a country mouse to visit comfortably....

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)

Already another European drama from the same period? But this one has to be the first Ukrainian film I've ever seen. OK, technically it's from the USSR, but a different area than Battleship Potemkin or Stalker. And director Sergei Parajanov got blacklisted for not conforming it to socialist realism, let alone a Russian focus.

Judging from book author Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky's lifetime, I'm guessing the story's set around 1900. It is difficult to summarize without giving a lot away, as the Netflix jacket did. Suffice it to say that there is substantial tragedy and alleged sorcery (despite the characters' surface Christianity). In the first scene, young boy Ivan gets pushed out of the way of a cut-down tree by his older brother, who dies instead; right after the brother's funeral, their father dies in a feud. Neither of these events has much bearing on the rest of the tale, mostly set in Ivan's adulthood, when his romantic heart brings him trouble repeatedly.

Enemy at the Gates (2001)

Yep, my final viewing before the New Year deadline was of another war film. Set in Europe during World War II, no less. Fortunately for my sake, that's about where the similarity ends.

For one thing, EatG has a much more individual focus, specifically on real-life Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev (Jude Law). Commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) notices his talent and writes about him in the news to increase morale on their side. It works, but the tradeoff for so much publicity -- a sticking point between the two friends -- is that the Germans know too much about Zaytsev and his whereabouts. Their own star sniper, Major Konig (Ed Harris), goes on a mission to take him down.

Bridge of Spies (2015)

You can't tell from any of my previous entries, but I'm a major Steven Spielberg fan. Maybe being named after him has biased me in his favor, but the projects that he directs and/or produces rarely disappoint me. I've seen nearly all his feature films to date, so don't expect me to review many more.

As in real life, in 1957, insurance attorney Jim Donovan (Tom Hanks) is asked to defend Soviet spy Rudolph Abel (three-time Tony winner Mark Rylance) in court. There's no getting Abel off the hook altogether, but Donovan persuades the judge to forgo a death sentence, not least because Abel could make a good bargaining chip. The opportunity for this comes before long, as two Americans become prisoners in rapid succession: a spy in the USSR and a mere student who attempted to break into East Germany for romantic reasons. Donovan once again steps up to the plate, this time in the even harder role of officially nongovernmental negotiator in Berlin. Can he get both communist governments to cooperate and trade two prisoners for one of questionable value?

Andrei Rublev (1966)

This may be the longest movie I've seen since I started this blog. Running nearly 3.5 hours with no overture or intermission, it feels like it could easily have been edited down to less than half as much. Even for a Russian classic, that's a lot.

It had also been one of the British Film Institute's favorite films that I hadn't seen yet, at #27 on their list of 50 greatest. But that did nothing to get me psyched for it. I have to say, the BFI's taste doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the AFI's. Perhaps I'm something of an ugly American after all.