Moskva slezam ne verit

Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears is an appealing comedy-drama with much to say about Soviet society from the 1950s to the 1970s. The cast deliver standout performances, and this is the film's greatest strength. The story is about their lives. The city's scenery is often featured, with cinematography that's good for a Soviet drama film. The score, however, is standard fare, but there are a few notable songs. Considering its high entertainment value it's no wonder that Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears became one of the most popular films in the Soviet Union. It even won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980. It's just one of those films where everyone involved in making it contributed to a result that delivers on all fronts. If the acting or the direction was worse then the result could have been another forgettable drama. Soviet filmmakers, however, specialized in drama films. This is because of the restrictions that were put on them by the government. Many good dramas were released during the Soviet period, and Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears is one of the most memorable. I definitely recommend seeing it.

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.

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.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

Being of Russian descent and a first generation Australian, I first saw this film in the original Russian a year or two after it came out. At the time I thought it was one of the funniest things I had seen in a long long time. I saw it again when our World Movie channel broadcast it and I laughed just as hard and just as long. To understand the comedy in what appears to be a story of feminist angst you need to be Russian. There is no other way to see it. We don't see that the supposed conflict between between the heroine and her lover is that she is a manager and he is not. It's much more primal than that. It is because she EARNS more than he does. Women held managerial positions in the USSR since they first began driving tanks and tractors during the second world war. Most of us are brought up to believe that we can do just about anything, and a lot of the time we have to. So please, if you see this film, remember to laugh. Remember that Yes, Russians aren't happy unless they're miserable but the story of this film is also about the joy of rebuilding lives and relationships for both men and women and about the triumph of the human spirit over seemingly impossible odds.