8 UNDERRATED Soviet movies

1. ‘¡Que viva México!’ (1932/1978)

In 1929, director Sergei Eisenstein went to Hollywood, where he was supposed to shoot a movie. Two of his scripts were rejected and work on the third had been frozen, due to anti-communist sentiments. Fortunately, a new opportunity arose – to make a film about Mexico. Eisenstein went to shoot on location: He planned to shoot several short stories that would show the country's culture in all its diversity. But, such a long absence from the country did not go unnoticed – he was practically declared a deserter. At the end of 1931, he had to urgently return to Moscow. The footage remained with the Americans and only in the late 1970s did it end up in the USSR. From it, director Grigory Alexandrov edited a movie close to Eisenstein's concept.

2. ‘I Am Cuba’ (1964)

This movie by Mikhail Kalatozov, director of the famous movie ‘The Cranes Are Flying’ (1957), is about the revolution in Cuba. The list of creators includes top names, not only in cinematography, but also in literature and painting. Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and director Enrique Pineda Barnet co-wrote the script, the cameraman was Sergei Urusevsky, whose camera had worked magic in ‘The Cranes Are Flying’. The artistic consultant, meanwhile, was Cuban artist Rene Portocarrero.

Unfortunately, the huge canvas about how Cuba had become the “Island of Freedom” was not a success at the box office. Relations between Cuba and the USSR had cooled by that time and, in his homeland, the director was reproached for being carried away by art for art’s sake and forgetting that it was necessary to show the revolutionary struggle. Only in the 1990s was the movie remembered. Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola helped to screen it at international festivals.

3. ‘A Long Happy Life’ (1966)

The only directorial work of Gennady Shpalikov, the screenplay author of the famous ‘I Step Through Moscow’ (1964) and ‘I Am Twenty’ (1965). It’s a story about the unfulfilled love of a man and a woman who randomly meet on a bus: the main character promises to take his new acquaintance away to a long happy life, but, the next morning, realizing that she has taken his offer seriously, he disappears.

The movie was criticized for its insignificant theme, as well as for the excessively drawn-out final scene, where a barge sails endlessly along the river. However, at the same time, ‘A Long Happy Life’ is incredibly reminiscent of the films of the French New Wave.

4. ‘Adventures of a Dentist’ (1967)

Elem Klimov’s movie waited 22 years for its premiere! The protagonist Dentist Chesnokov has a unique gift – he can extract teeth without pain. Patients line up to see him. Only his colleague Dr. Lastochkina dislikes the young doctor and she launches a real campaign against him. As a result, Chesnokov loses his gift.

It would seem like a harmless, sentimental comedy. But, movie authorities saw in it criticism of Soviet reality and the movie was immediately removed from distribution. Audiences only got to watch ‘The Adventures…’ in 1987.

5. ‘Grandmaster’ (1972)

A unique case: outstanding grandmasters Viktor Korchnoi, Mikhail Tal, Yuri Averbakh, Alexander Kotov and Mark Taimanov all starred in this movie about chess. And the movie is worth watching just for their appearance on screen. But, also because, in the late 1970s, the movie was no longer shown, because Korchnoi refused to return to the Soviet Union. So, it is also a kind of document of the era.

6. ‘The Lonely Voice of Man’ (1978)

This movie might never have reached audiences – Alexander Sokurov’s diploma work based on the stories of Andrei Platonov was considered outrageous and ordered to be destroyed. The producers managed to save the movie and show it to Andrei Tarkovsky – he was impressed and even said that there were scenes in the movie that he envied. Audiences only got to see the movie 10 years later.

7. ‘The Chosen Ones’ (1982)

Director Sergei Solovyov said that this movie, based on a novel by former Colombian President Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, is about the collapse of a person’s personality, deprived of an inner core.

In 1944, Baron B. K. leaves Nazi Germany and goes to Colombia. There, he has a quiet life: things are going well, his beloved woman is by his side. Everything changes when he is accused of aiding the Nazis. He needs to find a way out of this situation at all costs, since he received the opportunity to leave Germany by agreeing to become an informant for the Gestapo. In order to maintain his position, B. K. is ready to do absolutely anything, even betray the person closest to him.

It’s interesting that this is a rare case in Soviet cinema, when the main character is not a hero, but a villain.

8. ‘Tears Were Falling’ (1983)

Director Georgy Daneliya called his movie a sad fairy tale and admitted that it was the most difficult for him. The plot is reminiscent of ‘The Snow Queen’: In the fairy tale, shards of a broken magic mirror fall into people’s eyes and they begin to see only the bad in everything. The same thing happens to the main character of the movie. A kind, soulful person, suddenly becomes angry, irritable, quarreling with his family and colleagues and trying to commit suicide. And when it doesn’t work out, he bursts into tears and with the tears comes a shard of the mirror.

The choice of actor for the main role was unexpected and, therefore, effective. Audiences are used to seeing Yevgeny Leonov portraying soft, kind people, but, in this movie, he’s transformed into an evil man with a petrifying face.