Word: alyosha
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...said, 'Sleep quietly, dear Comrade.' We will not say this," began Grigorenko, glancing down at the visage of his friend. "In the first place, he will not listen to me. He will continue to fight, anyway. In the second place, it is impossible for me without you, Alyosha. You sit inside me, and you will stay there. Therefore, do not sleep, Alyosha! Fight, Alyosha! Burn all the abominable meanness with which they want to keep turning eternally that damned machine against which you fought all your life...
Ballad is about a young soldier, Alyosha (Vladimir Ivashov), who becomes a hero almost by accident, and is given leave to visit his mother. On his way home on the chaotic Russian railroads he helps an amputee who is ashamed to return to his wife, delivers some soap to another soldier's unfaithful wife, and meets Shura (Shanna Prokhorenko), a girl who stows away in the beggage car he is riding in. Shura tells him that she already has a sweetheart, and after their adventures together confesses that this was a lie. They part, and Alyosha realizes too late that...
...Alyosha is very nearly a stock hero. Certainly he possesses all the deadly virtues. But Ivashov plays the role gently, with humor (shrewdly bribing an officiously corrupt train guard, telling white lies to the father of the soldier whose wife is unfaithful), and humanity (when as last he meets his mother they squander their moment together in awkward small talk); he is convincing. Shura's part is acted with purity and directness. This young Russian actress has a face so lovely that I didn't even resent Alyosha's soppy flashback memories...