El frío verano del 53

A violent gang take over a small town where a train carrying gold is shortly due to pass through. The local lawman stands up to them but is killed. Everyone else is too frightened to resist, except for a couple of strangers who everyone else views with suspicion but who have a final shoot out with the gang and save the town.

Sounds familiar? Like a lot of other westerns? Yes, except that the town is in Siberia, the gang are criminals released in an amnesty (prison bosses took the opportunity to relieve themselves of the prisoners who caused the most trouble) and the strangers in town are political exiles from Moscow.

It's well executed and entertaining, even with subtitles. It proves that certain ideas cross cultural boundaries.

Generally, amnesty is provided to prisoners on humanitarian grounds in order to initiate reform process. However, there are instances when an offer of amnesty is misused by certain prisoners. Director Alexander Proshkin's Russian film "The cold summer of 1953" chronicles how some escaped convicts misuse amnesty provided to them to terrorize innocent villagers. Based on a series of true events which have a lot of historical significance for Russian people, Proshkin's film faithfully describes how the clash of ideologies continue to have a massive impact on the destinies of ordinary people. In the case of this film, Soviet leader Stalin's death enabled Beria to proclaim amnesty for hardened criminals, a group of people who were deemed as 'enemy of the state'. For a film which has a steady balance of action, drama and thriller, it is surprising to note that some space was also kept for portraying the innocence of ordinary people who were determined to continue with their ordinary lives. This quality would surely appeal to all viewers who might like to explore new facets of this film.

Grainy stock gives this film an almost documentary feel and has the additional effect of underscoring the dismal state of the trading outpost at which most of the events take place. _The Cold Summer of 1953_ is more authentic and less hysterical than _Gulag_, although it makes the same points with regards the social standing (or, more accurately, the complete lack of social standing) of political prisoners in postwar Russia. Looked down upon by even the most violent of criminals, the two political exiles still maintain a sense of dignity and, to some extent, honour, in the face of their privations.

This is a very good movie, however, one has to have some knowledge of Soviet history to fully understand it. The story takes place right after the death of Josef Stalin, to "celebrate" his death the Soviet command released all the prisoners within Soviet jails. All prisoners except the political ones, that is to say the rapists, murderers and thieves were freed while those who fought for freedom were still behind bars. That summer there was an unprecedented epidemic of crime in the Soviet Union. This film deals with the situation in a small village that has been attacked by a group of released prisoners, and the fight of one political prisoner to help the villagers.

The movie is not bad, its a good movie which I give 7 points of 10. I must say that the movie is not from 1988, its from 1987. It was the last film of anatolij papanov, while the recording of this movie he died.Papanov is getting big in movie-business since the movie briljantnaja ruka(1969), he played there a criminal man with a special humor personality, It will even nowadays make a parody of his charakter by people like the music group'Krasnaya Plesen'. But 'holodnoje leto 53-go' shows that in the early days it was sometimes so that the real criminals, which killed and stealed people get out and people who were not criminals and made not much wrong had to working as a prisoner.

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