deanc2000
I started to watch this film because of all the glowing reviews. The main character is Juliy, who is a postman, and he's trying to court this girl even though everyone just ignores him. The girl is in love with this rich Sergey dude, and he's always showing off to her. She is also being pursued by a banker, but then he gets arrested. Sergey leaves without saying a word, and then now is Juliy chance to win her heart. What does he do? He ruins the whole thing by getting drunk and embarrassing her. So the character I was rooting for the whole time, ends up to be another idiot. Sergey comes back and romances her, but in the end tells her he's engaged.So, there's no happy ending here, very disappointing.
Cristi_Ciopron
Eldar Ryazanov's greatest achievement was to make a Faubourg melodrama be suave and fresh,and to give it elegance and gusto,and a fitting fluidity;it has atmosphere,unity,gusto,the plastic is extraordinary:an enormously,lavishly delighting movie.While I was enjoying A Cruel Romance (1984),this movie picturesque and colorful and completely charming,I remembered how I saw it for the first time,in a theater,many years ago,as a kid and already a movie buff,with my late grandmother and with my godmother;at that age,I was impressed with the climactic final.An older gossip (Alisa Frejndlikh) at a pinch is pressed to marry away her third daughter,Larisa,the most profitable and advantageous way possible.Wonderfully written,and even more exquisitely constructed,Zhestokiy Romans (1984) boasts in featuring a still young beau Mihalkov as a slender and quite sluggard dandy of the slums;he was supple,nonchalant,mean and suburban.The role is mainly a physical one,and behind the mendacious slum dandy one feels the cold-hearted,evil-minded streetwise hooligan.Mihalkov is unmatched in giving "Serghei Sergheevitch",his character,a powerful interest.He is teamed with a wondrous,beaming beauty,the truly sensational Larisa Guzeyeva (here in her debut;very unfortunately,she did not make much of a career after Zhestokiy Romans ,1984,though she deserved to have one). The other characters are very well sketched, frightful figures of grotesque,the provincial fauna;a tedious and verminous clerk,two cynical and bitchy merchants,Knurov and Vojevatov.The atmosphere is chilling,a small provincial world devoured by sordidness:the ancient humanity,left to itself.A Cruel Romance (1984) succeeds in being much more than a lowbrow Faubourg tale:namely,in inspiring compassion for a human being,Larisa,and she is not a bit idealized;it is a Russian story about fate.The script may be lowbrow and conventional,but it is not in the least stupid.Ryazanov's astounding showmanship is undeniable,and the cast could not be better: Mrs. Alisa Frejndlikh,Aleksei Petrenko and Viktor Proskurin,Andrei Miagkov and Georgi Burkov are extremely good in their roles.With such a poor,unpromising and precarious content,the movie could very easily turn into something as provincial and insipid as a Frank Capra or a Nora Ephron film;but once again,the genre is nothing,the genre is a mere premise,the film itself is everything,and Eldar Ryazanov gave his film simplicity as well as transparency,gusto and charm,a delicious coloring;it is,for me,the very definition of charm and beauty;once again,the Russians are the masters of the coloration.Zhestokiy Romans (1984)staggers,surprises and delights by the keen sense of comprehensive width,by recreating a space traversed by the currents of freshness,life,spontaneity.The affective gamut is one of coldness,alienation and derision,mockery:the greed,the baseness,the intrigue,the lust,the brazenness have human shapes,the abominable cheek of promiscuity:Aleksandr Ostrovsky was a bitter moralist.The plastic gamut,on the other hand,unfolds relishing and cooling colors,inexhaustible treasures of visual delight,glacial colors that caress the heart.It is long since the art knew how to convincingly couch the range of threat,the embittered,ominous machinations gathering slowly under the eaves of a helpless and giddy being;Zhestokiy Romans (1984)does it;Larisa is not idealized,she is not adorned with improbable qualities.She is described simply as a being without malice. But the script is remarkably sober and balanced;the lines are well conceived.The scale confesses a Zolist impact,the influence of the Russian lesser realists and naturalists.
Jorge Reyes
This movie by Eldar Ryazanov surpassed my expectations. It really is quite an experience to see how Larissa's life unfolds; how she is coveted by men old and young, rich and poor... And yet every turn of events leaves a much bitter taste on her. It seems like if tears were a permanent mark of every Russian woman, like if, by definition, no woman would dare to call herself Russian without ever tasting the bitterness of life.Ryazanov is quickly becoming one of my favourite directors. Though here I may be coming late, since he actually achieved fame and glory during Soviet time, a long gone era. Anyway, his "Zhestokij Romans" or "A cruel Romance" tells a tale which seems to me timeless.Consider the plot of a very beautiful young woman, whose life ahead is full of promise.. But consider also that this girl's life is actually torn apart by events which seem (apparently) out of her immediate control, like if fate was conspiring against her at every other corner. Even her mother, willingly or not, at some point "sells" her -though like every other mother she blindly believes doing what's best for her daughter's future. Zhestokij Romans is sinonimous to drama: just watch the final scene, which is so powerful, telling and poetic...I especially enjoyed the Gipsy scenes. All that dancing, joy and vodka were very moving in this film. Just as Yugoslav director Emir Kosturica has immortalised the Gipsy people (i.e. "Underground") we also see in "Zhestokij" droves of joyful Gipsies carrying everywhere they go that sound which is at the same time melancholic and joyous. Some other scenes reminded me of "Svadba" (Pavel Lounguine) a film which also features lots of partying and rivers of vodka despite the imminent disgrace and bitterness of life. I even found some parallels with "Luna Papa" another film from the former Soviet republics in which a young and pretty girl has to rapidly mature and leap from childhood into adulthood.The Gipsy scenes also served as a very effective contrast between joy and doom. While they kept dancing, tragedy was occurring elsewhere. It's like they say: one man's happiness is another man's suffering.That's why I consider this movie to be "Timeless". That's why I consider the last scene a gem of cinema, like anything I've seen before. Our lovely Larissa is embarked in that permanent quest for real love and affection.
bankie_bhoy
Ok, this was my first Soviet-era Russian movie, so it was difficult to assess by my (western) standards. By those standards the characters seemed simplistic and exaggerated, and the screenplay cliché-ridden. Also, by those standards, the cinematography came across as ill-developed for the day.However, 'Cruel Romance' was something of a revelation for me. Just as the American Dream is expressed repeatedly (ad nauseam?) in Hollywood movies, I had a strong feeling after watching this movie that the 'Russian Dream' had been laid bare for my comprehension at last. The worship of impossible romance combined with blindness to all practical considerations and the expression of that romance in the gift of expensive baubles and other grand gestures are the main threads running through this story. And, despite the fact that 'Cruel Romance' is a Soviet-era depiction of 19th century Tsarist Russia, these are cultural traits to be found in abundance in modern-day Russians. For this reason watching the movie was a treat to me personally, and henceforth I will view my Russian friends and colleagues with a slightly higher degree of understanding.Also, I hope to see many more Russian movies in the future !
