Dama Pik

Kesiniya Rappoport plays a Russian Diva who is staging Tchaikovsky's opera about a card game that one can win or lose. A young unknown singer badly wants the lead part Herman, in fact he wants to be Herman. He is literally willing to die for the part and willing to have mobsters fund his larger and larger bets to emulate the fictional Herman. Appropriately he does get the majority of screen time. However this is Rappoport's film and she dominates with a great performance.

This Russian film is somewhat derivative, how could it not be, of the earlier Tchaikovsky based film "Black Swan". I think that this one is even better.