Alisa Freyndlikh

Synopsis:
In one of the realms, there was time for the prince to get married, but the bride would have to be a real princess. A sign was put up on the gates: “ A Princess Wanted”. But in response to it there appeared only a small girl, wet to the bones after the rain and bearing no resemblance to nobility. So the prince was obliged to venture off to other lands in search of a suitable match. Henceforth the prince’s adventures unfold. In one kingdom, he met a fat king, in another – a hospitable king. He also visited the kingdom of arts. He saw enough princesses, beautiful and clever. And yet, the real princess, the only one he longed for, proved to be the girl who had knocked at their door during a rainstorm…Read More »

A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.Read More »

A lavish two-part costume tragedy based on the classic The Dowerless Girl by the nineteenth-century playwright Alexander Ostrovsky, A Cruel Romance (also known as Ruthless Romance) was the biggest Soviet box-office hit of 1984, though it seems to have had little international exposure until now.

It marked a change of direction for the veteran Eldar Ryazanov, who up to then had tended to specialise in contemporary comedy, though it seems to have done his career little harm: he was made a People’s Artist of the Soviet Union that year – and no wonder, quite apart from the film’s commercial success, its mostly wart-ridden portrait of the venal, money-grubbing bourgeoisie of the then-discredited Tsarist era must have gone down a storm with the Soviet authorities.Read More »

Anatoli Yefremovich Novoseltsev works in a statistics institution, whose director is an unattractive and bossy woman. An old friend of his, Yuri Grigorievich Samokhvalov, who gets appointed assistant director of the institution, wants to make Novoseltsev the head of the department but encounters objections from Ludmila Prokopievna Kalugina, the director. Samokhvalov then advises Novoseltsev to lightly hit on the boss. Ironically, Novoseltsev and Kalugina fall in love with each other…Read More »

Description:
A comedy about a young dentist, who becomes well-known in his town but suddenly loses faith in himself.
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(imdb review)

A masterful, pro-elitist, Tatiesque film from Elem Klimov, 22 April 2006

Author: Niffiwan from Toronto, Canada
This is story about a dentist with the talent of painlessly extracting teeth, and what happens to him as a result of being naturally good at his job. It is told with humour (much of it quite subtle, almost surreal, and in the background – imagine a street scene where everyone on the sidewalk on one side of the road walks in just one direction, and on the other side in the other), poignancy, and a frequent breaking of the 4th wall between the movie and the audience (think of what happens in Shakespeare’s plays, and you’ll be close). It also features some songs by Novella Matveyeva, a famous Russian singer-songwriter (her songs are sung by the leading actress).Read More »