Erste Liebe

I saw this for the second time yesterday in a local cinema. On the big screen it was all the more impressing.

This is a very good adaption of Turgenjews story. What I mean by that is that, not only did it ewoke the same feelings that the novella gave me, it used the possibilieties of cinema to amplify them even. The directing is superb, with each shot you feel right there, the cinematography is poetic and connects rural Russia to the very soul of the characters. The acting is deep and the last scenes had me close to tears. On the downside it has some of the more out of place shots and this awkward feeling some of the european productions of that era had.

If you liked Turgenjews novella, definetly see this. If you have ever been a teenager desperatly in love, you need to see it just as much.

The poetic shots, along with a deliberately spare and unadorned set design and the vast natural expanses of woods and meadows, in my opinion, fail to alleviate the shadows of the first adolescent betrayal, the young protagonist's loss of innocence and feelings, but also the disenchantment of the aura that surrounded the father figure.

In the Russian countryside of the late 19th century, young Alexander (John Moulder-Brown) falls in love with the unscrupulous Sinaida (Dominique Sanda), daughter of a disgraced princess, who has moved into the villa where he is spending the summer with her libertine father (Maximilian Schell) and strict mother (Valentina Cortese). Thus, he is drawn into the whirlwind of decadent vice, along with Dr. Lushin (Marius Göring) and other friends of the young aristocrat.

Maximilian Schell's directorial debut is a decidedly immature work, lacking narrative consistency and intensity; the director, along with John Gould, adapted a short story by Igor Turgenev for the screen, giving it a poetic, at times dreamlike, feel; the highly respected cast fails to influence the film's final success.

Worth seeing for the poetry of Sven Nykvist's cinematography, though, in my opinion, the director indulges in it with excessive complacency, to the detriment of the narrative itself.

Two icons of 70's international cinema -- Dominique Sanda & John Moulder

Brown -- play wonderfully off each other in this lovingly rendered tale of youth, love and the loss of innocence. The photography by none other the great Sven Nyquist more than makes up for some slight sluggishness in the narrative.

Schell's direction is lyrical but not overt or showy. But it is the leads that make this a touching and memorable adaptation of the Turgenev story. Hard to find but definitely worth it.