Bardlerx Strictly average movie

AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Yulia (yulenko) It's a movie in the best Mikhalkov's manner: simple but deep; funny and serious; a Russian picture with (this time) Italian colors; and as always, about the deepest depth of a Russian soul. Some may say, Mikhalkov's movies are of universal things - true, but they always touch something deeply Russian. Waiting ... love ... faith ... sincerity. When all that meets in one point, harmony and happiness come; when at least one element is missing, ... Romano comes. With all the consequences. Mikhalkov reminded me again - we live by the consequences of our actions. (i need to add a bit - they asked for the 10th line here :) BUT quantity is not quality!)

Gerald A. DeLuca There are many wondrous qualities to this movie, especially the performance of Marcello Mastroianni. I only want to mention one scene, my favorite. It occurs when Romano (Mastroianni) arrives by train in the Russian village of Sisoev where he is to set up a glass factory. Upon de-training all he sees is a peasant woman with a cow. Suddenly, on the other side of the tracks a band plays. Romano walks across the welcome-carpet to a crowd of townspeople giving him a raucous reception. Actually folks here want the factory for themselves . The Italian is offered Russian bread to sample. Young girls bear doves and present the man with wreaths. The mayor recites a poem and gives a welcome speech. A medal is bestowed. Kisses galore are planted. Singers and balalaika players appear. Caviar and lethal vodka is thrust upon the man, who is barely able to cope with its potency. It's a distillation (pun intended) of Russian-ness which overwhelms the guest as he is conducted by carriage to his hotel and carried in, tired and soused, later muttering "Sabatchka," the name of the little dog belonging to Anna, the Russian girl that has aroused his passion. Great, great!

appletree I consider this movie a masterpiece. The performance of Marcello Mastroianni is simply sublime, one of the best I have ever seen from anyone, anywhere. Yes, the surface plot is about adultery, but the story is much more than that. I think this is a story about a man, an old man near the end of his life, looking back on his playboy, vagabond, good-for-nothing life, regretting it, but not knowing any other way to live. "Mother's lullaby and the Russian mist" is all he remembers about his own life, he says. Watch this old man cry, and it stirs you with all kinds of emotions and thoughts, makes you think about how you should live, that tragedy happens everyday, to every small man who must fend for himself and fail. You tell yourself you will never be like him, you pity him, disrespect him, despise him, but in the end you understand this man in the most profound sense. And you will never be able to forget that Russian mist either. Superb.

phranger An Italian who cannot afford to take anything seriously (as by now he is little more than an ornament in the life of his countess wife) meets a young, married Russian woman at a spa, where she is alone (and living on short funds). Not meaning to, he causes her to fall in love with him (rather than simply to bed him, as would be the usage at the spa). He realizes this when she returns to Russia and her husband. He then sets out on the one serious undertaking of his life, meeting her again in Russia. For her part, she has realized that he could only be what he is, and in any case she lives as a correct married lady. So the enterprise leads to nothing -- except that the Italian loses the taste for standing for his wife's husband, and winds up, appropriately, as a waiter on a ferry. Extremely memorable.