Le Bonheur d'Assia

Well the clue to the plot is in the title, but luckily it has a really powerful performance from Iya Savvina as the eponymous, pregnant, character who proves strong and determined despite a disabling limp to help this really stand out. Her lively gypsy community farm has something of the survival of the fittest to it, and she isn't really anyone's choice for a wife amidst the boorish citizens who make up her village. Even the father of her unborn child shows little interest, though her affection for him is clear for all to see. The thing is, her's isn't a desire for something from fairy tale either. She is just as capable as many of the men - just ask the hapless "Stepan" (Aleksandr Surin), and her emotional needs don't require the trappings of traditional romance, per se. Her's is as much a desire to be accepted and loved for whom she is, and that's quite a challenge! It's not difficult to see why this remained banned for ages as it doesn't depict the Soviet political ethic particularly favourably; nor does it look at the sexes, nor those of an ethnic minority, as in any way equal - and that's what help to make it's points more potent. It's unsavoury and gritty; the characters are frequently obnoxious, malnourished, malformed and hardly the epitome of the collective glory the CCCP wanted to export to the world. It's that honesty - helped to a considerable extent by real "peasants" rather than actors; when coupled with the touchingly assertive effort from Savvina that makes this a tough, but ultimately quite rewarding, watch that does inject some humour now and again but is essentially quite a revealing and plausible look at the lives of people whose lives meant little, even to them! It's a slightly cyclical story, this - ages gone by might evolve into ages to come that might never improve whether there be a Czar or a Chairman at the helm of the state.

One of the best examples of amazing black and white photography. How do we capture atmosphere and one's soul? How do we tell about them?

For those who believe in fate, this is a film to see as well as for those who do not believe in it. Do we really just get chosen for our miseries or do we create those miseries? What is the percentage of effect of IQ when we talk about fate?

She lived loved and slowly died as she danced her life away with the gypsy crowd. The deepest agony of surviving in the Soviet Union.

Beautiful story telling and visual as well as very good performances. Asia is my mom my sister and my girl friend.

It is a must for all those who are into black and white photograph and visuals as well as those modern man walking around "knowing it all".

Enjoy.....

It may be worth asking if there's a corollary between the quality of a film and the number of years it's been banned. Until 1987 only two people outside the Iron Curtain (Tom Luddy and Bernardo Bertolucci) had seen Andrei Konchalovsky's second feature, belatedly hailed (by Michail Gorbachev, no less) as a long lost classic of Soviet cinema. And not without good reason: the film is as fresh today as it must have been when first released in 1966, prompting immediate censorship by daring to depict Soviet citizenry in such an unflattering natural light. It wouldn't be difficult to imagine the Politburo's response to seeing, among other embarrassments, a drunken farmhand urinating on his overheated tractor engine, or a Farm Collective Chairman portrayed by a hunchback (who off screen was, in fact, an actual Farm Collective Chairman). Except for his three primary characters Konchalovsky employs a non-professional cast to illustrate the strong and particular attachment Russians feel toward their land, but the director's sentiments obviously run deeper than the Party Line. He stakes his faith in common humanity, warts and all, and after twenty years in bureaucratic limbo the refreshing honesty of his efforts is a revelation.

Cinema-verite, poetic, brilliantly made and harsh view of life on a Soviet collective farm, where you struggle to tell the professional from amateur actors. A lame girl fails to find love in the rough men surrounding her. Well, gentle men from more sophisticated walks of life aren't always great either. Her last song and scream tell it all. Not easy viewing but essential for getting to know something about such a vastly different way of life, where love is as rough as anything else, yet still exists to be lost, perhaps more poignantly than ever.