Olhos Negros

It's a movie in the best Mikhalkov's manner: simple but deep; funny and serious; a Russian picture with (this time) Italian colors; and as always, about the deepest depth of a Russian soul. Some may say, Mikhalkov's movies are of universal things - true, but they always touch something deeply Russian. Waiting ... love ... faith ... sincerity. When all that meets in one point, harmony and happiness come; when at least one element is missing, ... Romano comes. With all the consequences. Mikhalkov reminded me again - we live by the consequences of our actions. (i need to add a bit - they asked for the 10th line here :) BUT quantity is not quality!)

This Russian-Italian co-production from 1987 finds two older men, one Italian, the other Russian, talking in the empty dining hall of a slow ocean liner. The Italian tells his story in flashback, as we see him fight with his rich wife, which sends him to a health spa to recuperate, where he meets a bored, young and beautiful Russian woman who is herself unhappily married. After many overtures toward a romance, the Russian wife flees back home, and the Italian follows her, ostensibly on business, but truly in hopes of sparking the romance further.

The film is gorgeously photographed, and much attention is paid to costume and set design, as well as delicate color schemes. Marcello Mastroianni received his final of three Best Actor Oscar nominations for this, and he's wonderful as usual. Silvano Mangano plays his wife, and Marthe Keller appears as a family friend. I wasn't familiar with the Russian leads, Elena Safonova and Vsevolod Larionov, but they are fine as well. The story drags a bit in places, and lengthy passages of Russian without subtitles started to detract after a while (I'm not sure if this was the fault of the print I watched, or if it was intentional, to show the language barrier faced by Mastroianni's character).

At first it seemed a terribly slow start. This was exacerbated by our mistaken notion that "Oci Ciornie" was just another title for "Urga" - we kept wondering when and how they would ever get to Mongolia in that boat!

However, once we'd determined the actual story line the dilatory beginning seemed somehow apropos. Did Mikhalkov really mean to show us the emptiness of adultery? Or is he just an astute observer of the human condition? The parallels to the 1960 B&W "Lady with the Dog" (Russian) were striking. Especially the watermelon scene. But "Dark Eyes" takes the story further and carries the theme to its logical conclusion. My daughters hated it - they prefer stories of fidelity. But I did think it was refreshing for a film to come nearer the truth for a change. Adultery is not that fulfilling.

There are many wondrous qualities to this movie, especially the performance of Marcello Mastroianni. I only want to mention one scene, my favorite. It occurs when Romano (Mastroianni) arrives by train in the Russian village of Sisoev where he is to set up a glass factory.

Upon de-training all he sees is a peasant woman with a cow. Suddenly, on the other side of the tracks a band plays. Romano walks across the welcome-carpet to a crowd of townspeople giving him a raucous reception. Actually folks here want the factory for themselves . The Italian is offered Russian bread to sample. Young girls bear doves and present the man with wreaths. The mayor recites a poem and gives a welcome speech. A medal is bestowed. Kisses galore are planted.

Singers and balalaika players appear. Caviar and lethal vodka is thrust upon the man, who is barely able to cope with its potency. It's a distillation (pun intended) of Russian-ness which overwhelms the guest as he is conducted by carriage to his hotel and carried in, tired and soused, later muttering "Sabatchka," the name of the little dog belonging to Anna, the Russian girl that has aroused his passion. Great, great!

There's no really much you can say and analyze about this movie. It's not a movie by itself, it's a piece of art lost in the ocean of mundane cinema of the 20-th century. It's like the great literature, the great paintings of history, impregnated with a mystical and hard to define quality in it's texture. For me this is not simply a "movie", i say it again. Like Nostalghia or Andrei Rubliov of Tarkovsky , here the poetics transcends what we usually call cinema, or a film, because it gets a life on it's own, and becomes independent to critical observation. It's like a tiger in the Siberian forest, that you have to simply admire. A tiger is beautiful because it's a tiger, Oci Ciornie it's beautiful because it is Oci Ciornie. Something divine happened to Mihalkov and to the cast when thy made this piece of art. It was the greatest shame and scandal when the jury at Cannes awarded "Sous le Ciel de Satan" the Palme D'or, but who cares...Time is for the art what is for the wine. The good one gets better, the cheap one gets sour and becomes vinegar.