Andrey Konchalovskiy is a Russian treasure, very creative director with long and fruitful career. Much was given to him by birth and much he had earned as a film director on his own. In my estimation, this film, as all his films, is a cinematic event. As any work of art, one must feel fabula carefully constructed (montaged) by the director. You classic training: Sergey Eisenstein, Italian neo-realism, etc.
Konchalovskiy was a part of the world cinema scene since sixties, he's deservedly internationally recognized figure. He makes, if not completely commercial, still film close to average audience, without formalisms making his films accessible only to connoisseurs. Yet, you can feel depth of the metaphors, compelling images, carefully constructed mise-en-scene, creative casting and dialog.
You must be living in USSR in the 80s and 90s to be able to appreciate some of the dialog and happening in Galya's flash backs to her childhood. But there is also a universal appreciation of child's hopes who's trying to please her mother - just to be slapped on the face. Child's tears and pain that compel her become something more than what she is destined to be. This energy feeding desire to stand-up which drives her, at the background of her mother and father, beyond redemption and hope. Her success at the end appears to be untrue, unjustified, impossible, especially in the view of a last scene of supposed her shooting by her former boyfriend, which connects her with the past, which just wouldn't let her go.
This failure/fulfilment paradox is a cautionary tail and ambiguity of wish-fulfilment, ill defined and not supported but only desire of motherhood and social standing. As if Konchalovskiy modeled a life situation which he couldn't understand/resolve himself and leave this mystery to ponder by the viewers.
Konchalovskiy was a part of the world cinema scene since sixties, he's deservedly internationally recognized figure. He makes, if not completely commercial, still film close to average audience, without formalisms making his films accessible only to connoisseurs. Yet, you can feel depth of the metaphors, compelling images, carefully constructed mise-en-scene, creative casting and dialog.
You must be living in USSR in the 80s and 90s to be able to appreciate some of the dialog and happening in Galya's flash backs to her childhood. But there is also a universal appreciation of child's hopes who's trying to please her mother - just to be slapped on the face. Child's tears and pain that compel her become something more than what she is destined to be. This energy feeding desire to stand-up which drives her, at the background of her mother and father, beyond redemption and hope. Her success at the end appears to be untrue, unjustified, impossible, especially in the view of a last scene of supposed her shooting by her former boyfriend, which connects her with the past, which just wouldn't let her go.
This failure/fulfilment paradox is a cautionary tail and ambiguity of wish-fulfilment, ill defined and not supported but only desire of motherhood and social standing. As if Konchalovskiy modeled a life situation which he couldn't understand/resolve himself and leave this mystery to ponder by the viewers.