Leste/Oeste - O Amor no Exílio

For a guy who was a French communist until the age of 35, it was a hard movie to take, but it is a superb film, well acted and very realistic. My father was a french communist (the heart on the left and the wallet on the right) and he actually contempleted emigrating to the motherland of socialism when I was a kid, thank God, his wallet was heavier than his heart... Go to your video store and rent it, you won't regret it !

I went to this film without realizing that it told a story which had parallels in the history of my own Russian-emigrant family. My grandmother's brother repatriated under Stalin, had his goods and land confiscated, died in Siberia, and lost his two young sons to the Soviet Army.

The film is absorbing and disturbing. The most shooting is done at eye level. There is a true sense of witness for the viewer in a very elemental, unavoidable way. Strangely, I think this improved the experience of the predictable horrors of life in Stalin's USSR. It made the experience seem, for me, much more present and less sentimental.

The performances were very good. Ms. Bonnaire was totally believable and very likeable, despite the naivete and hysteria of her character. Mr. Menshikov played Alexei with great complexity and nuance, which allowed me to be less judgmental and to see his irrational need to belong among his own people as a very natural inclination. Mr. Bodrov, a Russian Brad-Pitt-alike, was very magnetic in his role as Sacha.

I simply love to see Ms. Deneuve in any role, but her playing a mature French actress with admirable values was very moving for me. She carries her own maturity so regally. She was perfect for this role.

I think this film is a wonderful model of cross-cultural cinema. I would like to see more films of this type in the US.

Today, only few can imagine how hard it was to live under oppression, in constant fear not only about yourself, but also all those you love. When propaganda, lies and blackmailing becomes integral part of the ruling system. I saw the movie before and watched it again now. I would like to know more about how the stories ended (but after all it was not based on a single story)... The movie is a big drama full of conflicts, where I myself did not know who is right and who is wrong, who has a good character and morals and who not... Watching these movies make me appreciate the freedom we live in now!

In 1946, Stalin invites Russian émigrés to return, in patriotic fervor, to help rebuild from WWII. Unbeknownst to them, all returnees are considered imperialists and spies, and are to be treated accordingly. "East-West" explores this nightmare scenario through the eyes of a family who returned; a Russian doctor, his French wife and their young son. Because of his doctoring skills he is spared the Gulag or execution, but his life in Kiev is certainly not what his wife is used to. The collision of cultures, the hardships, and the Stalinist tyranny all take a deep toll as they struggle to survive and escape.

Dark, and claustrophobic, this is a gripping tale from beginning to end. And it is in the end a great love story, of devotion and sacrifice. At the showing I attended the tears flowed freely in the audience. I recommend it highly.

"East/West" ventures into a time (post WWII) when the Iron Curtain shrouded Stalin's Soviet Union and a curtain of suspicion and distrust shrouded every soviet life. The film follows a French family of three as the patriarch returns to his Russian homeland where he and his family are held prisoners of conscience by communism. The film focuses on the characters, their silent suffering and yearning for freedom while living in a state of constant paranoia as it tears husband from wife, mother from son, and heroism emerges from the most unlikely places. "East/West" is an entertaining watch for all and, though fictional, offers a sense of what the Cold War was about.