Leonid Gaidai’s irreverent comedy updates a Leo Tolstoy story for modern Soviet times, in the Caucasus region. Shurik, a naive Russian student mired in his own clumsy Soviet culture, sets off to the Caucasus to write down the folk culture of this region: its traditions, legends, sayings, and toasts.

At film’s start, Shurik, struggling with his donkey in an unspecified but Middle Eastern-feeling part of the Caucasus, meets the local Edik, who is struggling to fix his Soviet jalopy. Here they are passed by a vacationing young Russian girl, and pursuing her will take everyone through not only comic situations, but barbaric stereotypes of a culture and people being in some ways barbarically integrated into the USSR. In a 1999 overview, Kidnapping, Caucasian Style was listed as the 4th most popular box-office hit of the entire Soviet era, measured by number of moviegoers.

Quote:
In the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet cinema turned to a comic genre foregrounding individual (personal) happiness, and increasingly many movies eschewed realism for an inverted chewing-gum reality. This change in the direction of the Soviet cinema also affected the portrayal of the Caucasus. Soviet directors came up with diverse depiction of different ethnic groups. Unlike Turksib (1929), which shows the illiterate and archaic periphery of the Union, White Sun of the Desert from 1970, for instance, “suggests ambivalence in the relationships between colonizer and colonized” and “offers countervailing positive images of Central Asians.”

A Soviet director, Leonid Gaidai, enjoyed and loved by millions of Russian people, approached the theme of the Caucasus and explored the meaning of Russianness in his movie of 1966, Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (Кавказская Пленница, или Новые Приключения Шурика). As Beumers (2005) notices, Gaidai’s popularity came to him “because [his movies] replaced the coherent linear plots of earlier Soviet films with an episodic and fragmented world that corresponded more to reality than the varnished fairy tales of Stalin’s cinema”.

1.67GB | 1 h 19 min | 658×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/6E0906301F58F76/Kavkazskaya.plennitsa.(Kidnapping.Caucasian.Style).1967.480p.BDRip-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Leonid Gaidai – Kavkazskaya plennitsa AKA Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Leonid Gaidai’s irreverent comedy updates a Leo Tolstoy story for modern Soviet times, in the Caucasus region. Shurik, a naive Russian student mired in his own clumsy Soviet culture, sets off to the Caucasus to write down the folk culture of this region: its traditions, legends, sayings, and toasts.

At film’s start, Shurik, struggling with his donkey in an unspecified but Middle Eastern-feeling part of the Caucasus, meets the local Edik, who is struggling to fix his Soviet jalopy. Here they are passed by a vacationing young Russian girl, and pursuing her will take everyone through not only comic situations, but barbaric stereotypes of a culture and people being in some ways barbarically integrated into the USSR. In a 1999 overview, Kidnapping, Caucasian Style was listed as the 4th most popular box-office hit of the entire Soviet era, measured by number of moviegoers.

Quote:
In the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet cinema turned to a comic genre foregrounding individual (personal) happiness, and increasingly many movies eschewed realism for an inverted chewing-gum reality. This change in the direction of the Soviet cinema also affected the portrayal of the Caucasus. Soviet directors came up with diverse depiction of different ethnic groups. Unlike Turksib (1929), which shows the illiterate and archaic periphery of the Union, White Sun of the Desert from 1970, for instance, “suggests ambivalence in the relationships between colonizer and colonized” and “offers countervailing positive images of Central Asians.”

A Soviet director, Leonid Gaidai, enjoyed and loved by millions of Russian people, approached the theme of the Caucasus and explored the meaning of Russianness in his movie of 1966, Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (Кавказская Пленница, или Новые Приключения Шурика). As Beumers (2005) notices, Gaidai’s popularity came to him “because [his movies] replaced the coherent linear plots of earlier Soviet films with an episodic and fragmented world that corresponded more to reality than the varnished fairy tales of Stalin’s cinema”.

Quote:
Aleksandr Prokhorov (2003) said Gaidai’s films “owed their popularity to the visual style of his humor, with its stark contrasts to the verbal instantiations of official Soviet ideology within narrative-driven Soviet cinema,” where this zany style was novel:

“Gaidai privileged key elements of physical comedy, such as the primacy of visual over verbal humor, an exhibitionistic enlargement of the human body as a comic attraction, the transition from a still image to a moving picture as a visual attraction, and, most important, a chain of loosely connected sight gags (which became his signature structure) over a coherent and cohesive narrative.”

1.67GB | 1 h 19 min | 658×480 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/2D06A3CBA4F77FE/Kavkazskaya.plennitsa.(Kidnapping.Caucasian.Style).1967.480p.BDRip-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Leonid Gaidai – Kavkazskaya plennitsa AKA Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Occupation
An unconventional comedy based on M. Bulgakov’s play, “Ivan Vassilevich,” when inventor, Timofeev builds a time machine, things go awry. Tsar Ivan the Terrible comes into the year 1973, while Ivan Bunsha, an apartment complex manager, and George Miloslavsky, a petty burglar, are transferred to 16th century Moscow accidentally.

Maestro of Russian Comedy: Leonid Gaidai
Gaidai Leonid Iovich (January 30, 1923 – November 19, 1993), Russian film director and scriptwriter

The humor of great Gaidai is timeless. His comedies are free from edifying or obtrusiveness, he easily managed to avoid hackneyed cliches and smutty jokes. Phrases from his comedies have become winged and are widely used in Russia till date.

‘A cinema comedy should have as few words as possible, and those words must be laconic, sharp-cut and take an unerring aim’ – Gaidai said, and he was as good as his word.

Leonid Iovich Gaidai was born on January 30, 1923. From 1941 he was in the army in Mongolia. When the war began he was transferred to Kalinin front as a scout, as he had learnt German at school. After a severe wounding he got ‘unfit-for-duty’ and had to return home. In fact he never completely recovered after that wound which actually made him suffer till the end of his life; no one knew about it but for his family. He did not like to complain.

From early age Gaidai was dreaming of stage. In 1947 he graduated from a theatre studio in Irkutsk regional theatre and for several years played on the local stage. Though a shy and clumsy person having difficulties in pronouncing sounds ‘r’ and ‘l’, he was a good actor beloved by the public. In 1949 he entered the film direction faculty of VGIK (The All-Union Institute of Cinematography) where he met actress Nina Grebeshkova to become his wife and spend all life with him.

Though at the beginning of Gaidai’s creative life he was supported by well-known masters of Soviet cinema, such as Ivan Pyriev and Mikhail Romm, his way in cinema was far from simple.

‘Bootleggers’ (1961) (Yuri Nikulin, Evgeny Morgunov, Georgy Vitsin)The year 1961 saw Gaidai’s short-length film that proclaimed the birth of an outstanding comedy film director. It was a nine-minute long ‘Pyos Barbos i Neobychny Cross’ (Dog Barbos and Unusual Race), an unpretentious comedy that originated the unique phenomenon of three super popular mask-characters of the Soviet cinematography: Balbes (“Booby”, played by Nikulin), Trus (“Coward”, played by Vitsyn) and Byvaly (“Stager”, played by Morgunov). They also appeared in Gaidai’s next short-length comedy ‘Bootleggers’ (1962) filmed on the tide of Dog Barbos’ success.

Leonid GaidaiIn 1963 Gaidai creates the full-length comedy ‘Business People’ starring Yuri Nikulin, G. Vitsyn, A. Smirnov, R. Plyatt and the novelette ‘The Ransom of Red Chief’ after O. Henry’s story, which becomes a masterpiece of Soviet comedy. However it was the year 1965 that opened the so-called ‘Gaidai’s golden decade’ with the release of ‘Operation Y and Other Shurik’s Adventures’ starring Alexander Demyanenko. The comedy at once gained people’s love and popularity that somehow last till date. ‘Kidnapping Caucasian Style’ (1966) continuing the adventures of nice and amusingly touching Shurik won still greater love of the public. Spectators were happy to see the funny trio of Booby, Coward and Stager again in these two kind comedies sparkling with good humour. Lots of expressions from those comedies at once became winged.

‘The Diamond Arm’ (1968) (Yuri Nikulin and Andrey Mironov) The next comedy was ‘The Diamond Arm’ (1968), a gripping ironic detective story with unforgettable Yuri Nikulin, Andrei Mironov and Anatoly Papanov.

In 1971 Gaidai creates a screen version of Ilf and Petrov’s popular novel ‘Twelve Chairs’. The film director acknowledged not once that this comedy turned one of his most favorite movies.

Leonid GaidaiAnother undoubted masterpiece by Gaidai is ‘Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Occupation’ (1973) after Bulgakov’s play. The main roles in this fantastic comedy are played by Yuri Yakovlev and Leonid Kuravlev.

The 1980s saw Gaidai’s creative force gradually fading. However the satirical comedies ‘Borrowing Matchsticks’ and ‘Sportloto-82’ are really talented works marked by the brilliant acting of Mikhail Pugovkin, Evgeny Leonov and Vycheslav Nevinny.

In the shaky years of perestroika with its upheavals and uncertainty it was very difficult to create something worthy and Gaidai seems to have had difficulties in adapting to the changed situation. His last comedies are still funny but not as powerful as his earlier works.

In 1993 Leonid Gaidai fell ill with pneumonia and died in the hospital on November 19. His death appeared a sad outcome of his creative wearing out during the last years. Right after Gaidai’s going away reappraisal of his creations started and he was finally acknowledged an indisputable classic and a unique master of Soviet eccentric and satiric comedy.

Ivan.Vasilevich.Menyaet.Professiyu.1973.BDRip-AVC.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 31mn
Size:	1.46 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	768x560
Aspect ratio:	1.371
Frame rate:	23.976 fps
Bit rate:	2 080 kb/s
Audio
Russian 1.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/DDBE7FCA5452EE1/Ivan.Vasilevich.Menyaet.Professiyu.1973.BDRip-AVC.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Leonid Gaidai – Ivan Vasilevich menyaet professiyu AKA Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Occupation (1973) first appeared on Cinema of the World.