Word: misha
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...opening weekend, Russian Ragtime has perhaps the most tenuous link to Judaism of any film in the festival. It is suggested that the father of Misha, the protagonist, left Misha's mother because she was Jewish. That's it. Ragtime would fit more easily into a Communist or Russian Film Festival than a Jewish Film Festival, and any festival would be glad to have...
Russian ragtime is a type of Russian 70s music that, like its American counterpart, evokes nostalgia for a seemingly golden era which never actually existed. 1974 Russia indeed seems golden to Misha, a 20-year-old who dreams of living in New York, Misha starts working on the black market in an attempt to raise money for a black market ticket to New York. His work doesn't seem too taxing, and he spends most of his time cavorting exuberantly with his two best friends...
...gilt surface of Misha's seemingly charmed existence begins to corrode. The gangster whom Misha works for starts to threaten his life, and, even worse, Misha is captured by the police and urged to implicate his friends for tearing down a Soviet flag in exchange for a ticket to New York...
Nikolai Dobrynin's Misha is a man of a hundred smiling faces and several dozen frowns. His face is an open book, mirroring exactly Misha's emotions. One character comments on Misha's unwavering optimism by noting that his America is "in the nuthouse." But as Misha loses his innocence, his face becomes steadily grimmer. Dobrynin's virtuoso performance cements the film. The entire cast, in fact, merits special praise for their acting. Spotty subtitles cause the full meaning of the Russian dialogue to be lost on English speakers, but the marvelous performances transcend language...
Sergei Ursulyak is a visually daring director, and his film features many arresting sequences. Misha meets a stunning mystery woman on his first night in Moscow and later encounters her again alone on the subway. Too dejected to speak, he stays in the car. The camera moves away with the car, filming the solitary woman until blackness engulfs...