Moscou ne croit pas aux larmes

Moving story of three young girls who come to the capital of Soviet Russia in search of their fate. They play rich girls to impress the guys, and succeed in doing so. Katya (the protagonist) does not like the game, but still goes with the girls. But the truth is soon revealed, and Katya's boyfriend breaks up with her. She is pregnant and has to raise a kid alone in a tiny dorm room, and still try to get an education.

The second part shows the three girlfriends 20 years later. Katya is a very successful business lady and has a wonderful daughter. But she hasn't found real love, and the story takes a new turn when she meets Gosha in a train. They both now have to find ways into each other's established lives. A very nice and sincere story that people watch over and over again!

This is one of the most captivating love stories I've ever seen on film. It starts with a young woman (Katya, played by Vera Alentova) reporting to her Worker's Dormitory friends that she has flunked by two points the exam to get into university. It ends with the most incredible sweetness of life.

It is like a French film done by a Russian company (which is what it is). The Moscow we see that does not believe in tears does believe in love, and it is not a Moscow of politics, although some people do call one another "comrade." This is a woman's point of view film (a "chick flick") that transcends any genre cage. It begins slowly, almost painfully dull in a way that will remind the viewer of all the clichés about Russia, the unstylish dress, the worker's paradise that isn't, the sharp contrast between Moscow and the peasants who live outside the city. Katya works in a factory. She works at a drill press. She is obviously underemployed. Lyudmila (Irina Muravyova) works in a bakery. She is probably gainfully employed for the time and place. They are friends, twentysomethings who are on the make for a man, but not a man from the sticks. They pretend to be university post docs or something close to that and they impress some people as they house-sit a beautiful Moscow apartment.

This is how their adult life begins in a sense. Lyudmila falls in love with an athlete; Katya becomes infatuated with a television cameraman. One thing leads to another and before we know it they are forty. Neither relationship worked out. The athlete becomes an alcoholic, the cameraman, in the sway of his mother, believes that Katya is beneath him (once he finds out that she works in a factory). How wrong he is, of course.

But no more of the plot. I won't spoil it. The plot is important. The characterizations are important. The story is like a Russian novel in that it spans lots of time, but once you are engaged you will find that the two and a half hours fly by and you will, perhaps like me, say at the end "What a great movie!" My hat is off to director Vladimir Menshov and to Valentin Chernykh who wrote the script and to the cast. I've mentioned Vera Alentova and Irina Muravyova, but Aleksey Batlov who played Gosha was also excellent. I don't want to say anymore. Just watch the film. It is one of the best I've ever seen.

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Vladimir Menshov's well-balanced 'Moscow does not believe in tears' provides a moving story about human warmth. About fortunes and misfortunes that can befell anyone of us -- enabling us to identify easily.

This film also is about a very East European female eagerness to hunt after Mr. Right. Pressure is on, for in Communist society failure usually meant a lifelong condemnation to a poor, worried, boring and tiring life in some drab Russian provincial town. With a big possibility that your husband would booze himself up too much.

No doubt this film's acting makes its strongest feature. Its uninterrupted, breathtaking quality convincingly carries you back some fifty years in time. To Moscow, the capital of the USSR. Although this Communist society has been gone for a long time, 'Moscow does not believe in tears' will easily get you back there.

If you try to understand the meaning of Soviet mode of life (especially place of woman in Soviet society), this film represents the best one you can find for this purpose. The destinies of three women are depicted in clear and awesome way, and the most important you can see is that whatever happens in life, try to be optimist and to do everything not to give up living and being happy.

Culturally interesting since this occurs in a Communist country that US propaganda gave little insight on the values and realities of the people. We see idealistic poets who say the older generation made mistakes, women promoted to executive positions, a film produced by the State yet approaching sexual themes, Western idolization, the drudgery of repetitive industrial work, and class distinctions between the haves and have-nots.

Also of interest is the protagonist's view of herself. Without revealing plot twists, it is suffice to say that a woman is socially seen as submissive to the man. This is a shock to Western sensibilities of women's equality, especially as we see her ordeals as a result of a man's selfishness and dominance. What is revealing is that she, herself does not rebel against the System. She works within the parameters, creates her own success, and becomes transformed.

Being Western, I found myself questioning whether she had truly achieved something. The crown of achievement, we are taught, is independence, equality. Whereas she achieved that in a career and in her lifestyle, in her heart, she yearned for a man, to be the little wife, and to submit herself to a patriarchal marriage. But, in the end, who are we to judge another's happiness?