Mala Moskwa

poetic, gentle, delicate, profound, sad, sea of nuances. axis - a love story in cage of Cold War. memories of a Russian officer and questions of his daughter. silhouette of wife. bricks of a cruel political system. and a tale about feelings, basic gestures and dimension of fear. about power of courage and sacrifice as only key of normal things. it is not good movie. just perfect to discover roots of old similar stories. instrument - special beauty of actors, Polish and Russian language, few crumbs of romanticism and picture on a grave. a cross on the grave of a child and cried of a man at Gagarin death. not very much. but more than a film, it is a seed. and a testimony. remember of a time - a long and painful 1968. and occasion to meet, again, map of Poland soul. a woumb, impossibility to forgive, need to present old scares for understand, accept and learn about essence of a nation

A movie about thetraditional hate between polish and russians, but also a movie about blind love.A movie like americans never been capable to make.A movie with many political exagerations but a lesson of playing , telling the story , and direction.

It's an interesting film with a romance between a minor Polish military officer and a wife of a Russian officer stationed in a huge military base in Poland's Lower Silesia. A daughter is born out of the romance and the mother dies. We only find out in the end how it all happened when she, the daughter, and the widower visit the grave of the dead woman in Poland again after some twenty years. The same Russian actress who plays the mother plays the daughter role. More than half of the film is in Russian. There is fine music included of Ewa Demarczyk sung by the actress perhaps. It's in Polish with an accent with some Russian lyrics added. (We saw Demarczyk sing these songs at the Town Hall, NYC, winter 1987.)

The plot blurb on this page gets it wrong: During the Cold War, a local Polish officer and a young Soviet woman wedded to a Soviet officer are drawn together by music. The asymmetry between their countries' position and power are important to the plot, so I don't consider this mix-up trivial. Their affair attracts the attention of the military authorities precisely because of her military connections. Restrictions on the movements of Poles around the Soviet forces forces the couple to maneuver a fair bit to prosecute their affair. Indeed, one subterfuge to circumvent those restrictions lands the officer in trouble that seems disproportional to mere adultery. Although his commanding officers appear to have a modicum of sympathy for him, there is not much they can do in th face of the Soviets. The film is very well done for a melodrama but doesn't rise above the genre.

a love story. special for the delicate / wise/precise manner to show it. for the inspired trip between past and present, for the convincing portrait of a dramatic episode of Polish recent history .and for the admirable performances. a film as splendid exam of emotions, politic pressure and a dramatic live story, against rules, interdiction and clash between two cultures. în this case, the love story is more than a touching ingredient but the tool for define the essence of a period in precise manner .