12 stulev

It was supposed to be the best screen version of the beloved book and had everything going for it: brilliant Mark Zakharov - one of the best and most talented Soviet stage directors ("Til'", Yunona i Avos'" and "Zvezda i smert Khoakina Muryety" on the stage of Moscow Lenkom Theatre.) He has made the best TV movies I can think of: " An Ordinary Miracle" (1978), "That Munchhausen " (1979), "Formula lyubvi" (1984) and the terrific adaptation of "To Kill a Dragon" (1988), his only film for big screen. Unique Andrei Mironov is Ostap; Zinoviy Gerdt narrates the sparkling text; Rollan Bykov, Anatoly Papanov, and Oleg Tabakov (to name just a few great actors) star. Gennadiy Gladkov, the musical genius who wrote the scores and the songs for all Zakharov's films and for "Gentlemeny udachy" (1972), "Bremenskie muzykanty" (1969) and for "Malysh i Karlson" (1970), created the beautiful and stylish as usual score but the movie did not work. It is slow, boring, and pretentious. I really wanted to love it, I was so ready to love it but I could not. Why or why did Zakharov decide to repeat some of the scenes over and over again? Why or why did Mironov play Ostap as a walking zombie with the mascara on his eyes? Why or why the immortal jokes that had been narrated to us did not work as well as they did when we read them? The movie is not a complete failure but with all the talent involved, it could have been much better.

5/10

A major disappointment from an otherwise very strong cast. Mironov lethargically saunters around throughout the movie with mascara on his eyes! Totally unbelievable. He does not look anything like the resourceful and energetic character O. Bender is supposed to be. He effectively reprises his role in M. Zkharov's Obyknovennoe Chudo (same face, same intonations). The movie starts out at an extremely slow pace, so some things that read great in the book look bloated and hardly funny in the movie. The pace does not change through the first 3 parts, but probably realizing that he is not going to be able to fit the movie into the alloted time, the director compressed the rest into one episode dropping some very funny characters (Lyapis-Trubetskoi) and scenes. Compared with the 1971 version, every single performance is so much weaker, almost to the point of being pathetic.

This is pure genius - every word, every movement, and yet it doesn`t seem like they are orchestrated. There`s a feeling of improvisation through the movie. Mironov is like a flying comet, you almost see the sparks.The humor is so powerful that gets tears rolling, but I`m afraid only for those who are acquainted with Russian history and can understand the situations. I`m not at all sure that any translation could bring this across cultural boundaries. It should be watched in Russian and with good prior knowledge. Ten out of ten and it flows over that ! P.S. Previous, older version of "12 chairs" is not even comparable with this masterpiece.

This my first time writing a review on IMDb, but I could not resist 'cause this movie is a brilliant, exceptional masterpiece. It is larger-than-life (or at least as close to it as only possible)! It is extremely funny, sad and philosophically loaded at the same time. About how many things could one say that!? The tandem Mironov-Papanov here is one of the best in the history of cinema.

Many years ago I saw an American movie (do not remember which one) where the character was explaining that if there was a fire and he could save either the last copy of a Shakespeare play or a human life he would save the Shakespeare copy. Although I completely disagree with this attitude, one of the things I would ALMOST choose to save in such a situation instead of a human life would be the '12 chairs' with Mironov-Papanov...

I am not wondering that this movie has such a low rating in imdb. As you can see from the current valuation of this movie, it has a very high average mark, more then movies from top 10 of imdb. It is understandable, because this is the best comedy ever made. I have seen almost all movies from top 250 of imdb and I don't hesitate to admit that this movie is the best. The reason why this movie is so underestimated is a poor marketing of this movie. I am even convinced that it is not translated to any language. Although, if someone can't enjoy this movie in original, a lot would be lost. So, it is even worth to learn Russian to watch this masterpiece. This movie has the best script, the best actors and the best director. The previous make of Soviet Union movie industry was not so brilliant as this one. The reasons of failure of previous product are a not enough elaborated script and the choice of not appropriate actors. I am forced to acknowledge that some Russian actors and one director are better then anyone in Hollywood or Western Europe. I am not a Russian and I even don't like Russians' mentality and traits and features of character of "an average Russian". I hope the Russian movie industry will redeem this error by a far better marketing of this Zakharov's masterwork. However, I doubt about it. This movie should be in top 10 of imdb!