Word: kedrova
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DIED. LILA KEDROVA, 82, Russian-born actress who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Madame Hortense in Zorba the Greek; in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario...
Tell Me a Riddle is the story of David and Eva (Melvyn Douglas and Lila Kedrova)--two contrasting personalities living alone together. Their kids are married off and their house feels large. David, retired union organizer, is outgoing and affable. Eva, on the other hand, is introverted--slightly deaf, she is able to turn off the world by turning off her hearing aid. But she cannot extinguish a constant stream of disturbing flashbacks that remind her of years spent in Nazi concentration camps. Together, the husband and wife quarrel about selling the house. He sees it as a pragmatic move...
Although the plot is tediously slow, Grant's sensitive direction enhances the brilliant performances of Douglas and Kedrova, translating the Olsen story's depiction of typically modern confusions clearly and cohesively on film. Grant obviously understands the complexity Olsen gave to Eva's character. Her stubbornness certainly can be annoying, but cannot subdue the sympathy Kedrova elicits by capturing the intensity of a woman almost shattered by Nazi torture--the fear and sensitivity of a woman living within herself: finding solace in the literature and old photographs of Emile Zola and Victor Hugo, associating images of her playful grandchildren with...
...farewell visit to children and grandchildren, reaching a final resting place in the San Francisco pad of a hippy granddaughter. Eva finds in the girl an echo of her own past, and she makes some inarticulate efforts to pass on her heritage. But as played by Lila Kedrova, the old woman mostly seems merely gaga. It is sometimes hard to determine whether her grimaces are meant to convey joy or pain or simply the frustration of an actress trying to find a part that no one quite bothered to write out for her. The doughty trouper Melvyn Douglas, playing...
starring Jean Rochefort, Nicole Garcia, Annie Girardot and Lila Kedrova; written by Philippe de Broca and Alexandre Mnouchkine; directed by de Broca...