Master and Margarita (2005) is a Menippean film based on the eponymous book by Mikhail A. Bugakov. Set in Moscow under Stalin it has several story-lines that are intertwined. The sacrifices of Master (Galibin), a talented author of a manuscript about the biblical Pontius Pilate, and Master’s muse – Margarita (Kovalchuk), are paralleled by the biblical story of Yeshua in Yerushalaim, and the deceit of the cowardly ambiguous Pilate (Lavrov), whose character alludes to a Soviet leader. The reality is distorted by Satan Woland (Basilashvili), and his lieutenants, who are manipulating public events and people’s lives by pushing the buttons of human weaknesses and sins. Margarita taps into Woland’s power as she becomes the Queen of the Satan’s Ball. She turns into a witch to save Master. Some characters allude to Soviet leaders: Lenin, Stalin, Beria, and their entourage.

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	3h 11mn
Size:	2.24 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Not met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	716x360 ~> 716x402
Aspect ratio:	16:9
Frame rate:	29.970 fps
Bit rate:	1 448 Kbps
Audio
English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/4F76FCB78EEC194/Master_and_Margarita_-_Disc_One.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/6E116C5098D1EA5/Master_and_Margarita_-_Disc_Three.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/9B0CCAD593DE5BB/Master_and_Margarita_-_Disc_Two.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Vladimir Bortko – Master i Margarita AKA The Master and Margarita (2005) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Fantasmagoria mingles seamlessly into reality in this comic film. Oleg is being two-timed by his wife. Fortunately he is advised by well-known poisoners from history, from Caligula to Lucretia Borgia.

The new neighbour Arnold wanders into the life of the happily married Oleg and Katya and, before Oleg’s very eyes, steals the heart of his wife. When the duped husband meets the distinguished and elderly Mr Prokhorov, the latter advises him to poison his unfaithful wife, as he once did himself.This is the start of the comic adventures of Oleg in a mysterious world of deception, revenge, passion and worldfamous poisoners, including Pope Alexander VI Borgia, the French Queen Catherine de Medici, Nero and Caligula. Prokhorov teaches Oleg the art of mixing poison, with examples from ancient Persia and Greece to appeal to the imagination.By juxtaposing the story with anecdotal passages and journeys to a different dimension of time, Shakhnazarov blends phantasmagoria and reality seamlessly. In this beautifully designed absurdist world Oleg meets evil monarchs who advise him in his intended revenge. After committing his civilised murder, they say, Oleg will be immortal and can stay with them. In the meantime, in the real world, Oleg is happy with Arnold’s exwife Zoya and is successful as an actor in the role of Cesare Borgia, whom he `met’ earlier in one of the anecdotal passages.

2.18GB | 1h 43m | 960×720 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/6E5FDD3011DD65A/Poisons_or_the_World_History_of_Poisoning_(2001)_BDRip_x264.mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Karen Shakhnazarov – Yady, ili vsemirnaya istoriya otravleniy AKA Poisons or the World History of Poisoning (2001) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

An engineer in charge of the production line of a factory in Moscow is sent to a small town to try to specify the distributor the new dimensions of a mechanic part they need. But in this town everybody seems to be crazy (a secretary who works naked, a group of people take the engineer as a rock & roll player, etc) and, in addition, this man is witness of a suicide, so he is trapped inside the town.

3.13GB | 1h 41m | 794×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/F4088A0A05DAC22/Gorod.Zero.AKA.City.Zero.1989.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Karen Shakhnazarov – Gorod Zero AKA Zero City (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Summary:
Platon Ryabinin, a pianist, is traveling by train to a distant town of Griboedov to visit his father. He gets off to have lunch during a twenty minute stop at Zastupinsk railway station. He meets Vera, a waitress, after he refuses to pay her for the disgusting food he doesn’t even touch and misses his train due to police investigation of the incident. His passport is then accidentally taken away from him by Andrei, Vera’s fiancé, and his money is stolen as he waits for the next train to Griboedov. Vera learns that Platon is about to get sentenced and sent to prison in the Far East for a car accident he isn’t guilty for. During the few days that Platon has to spend in Zastupinsk he and Vera develop feelings for each other…
– Written by Denis Chebikin

2.80GB | 2h 12m | 1492×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/7B210161DFCCC5D/Vokzal.Dlya.Dvoikh.1982.1080p.WEB-DL.h264-PTP.mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English Estonian Latvian Lithuanian

The post Eldar Ryazanov – Vokzal dlya dvoikh AKA Railway Station For Two (1983) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

To earn money for married life, a young engaged man takes a job as an engineer on a privately operated oil drilling rig in the far North of Russia. A friend’s letter brings the sad news that his fiancée has already married someone else and in desperation he quits his job and flies back to Moscow. There all his vast efforts to win her back seem in vain…

Quote:
An engineer Oleg comes back in Moscow from Far Northland and finds out his bride Lena with the other man. But Oleg doesn’t give up. When Lena falls serious ill, Oleg gives all his money (and his friend’s flat) to her care. Genre of lyric melodrama which is a Danelian specialty, perhaps, never was so simple and unbearable (even excruciating) as here. Chaotic Russian 90s in all their glory. And two future stars of Piotr Fomenko’s troupe, Kirill Pirogov (introducing) and Polina Kutepova, as main characters.

1.55GB | 1 h 22 min | 762×572 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/E165DB810519457/Heads.and.Tails.1995.DVDRip.x264.AC3-DEEP.part1.rar
https://nitroflare.com/view/4A8031AA92EE55E/Heads.and.Tails.1995.DVDRip.x264.AC3-DEEP.part2.rar

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Georgiy Daneliya – Oryol i Reshka AKA Heads and Tails (1995) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:

A gentle, bittersweet tragicomedy, Autumn Marathon is about a middle-aged translator, Andrei Buzykin (Oleg Basilashvili), whose almost pathological niceness has trapped him in a seemingly endless series of awkward situations: his inability to turn anyone down has left him juggling a wife and mistress, on top of vast amounts of additional work usually done as unpaid favours for friends and students that’s constantly interfering with his own projects to the point where his career is put at risk.

And because he can’t bear to hurt anyone, he’s always taking the easy way out – which invariably means constructing a vast edifice of lies that he can’t possibly keep track of, which has the equally inevitable side-effect of turning a fundamentally decent if weak-willed man into what looks like the epitome of a philandering boor. Half the time, his excuses are entirely genuine – he really did help his Danish friend Bill Hansen (Norbert Kuchinke) at a drying-out clinic, and stayed up all night with his less talented colleague Varvara (Galina Volchek) to help her on a difficult translation, but this counts for little when he’s so widely disbelieved. The title refers to his regular early morning jogging sessions with Bill – again, he’d much rather be doing something else, like staying in bed, but how can he possibly say no?

Andrei’s most immediate problem is that he can’t choose between his long-suffering wife Nina (Natalya Gundareva) or his naively optimistic secretary-cum-mistress Alla (Marina Neyolova). Both are well aware of each other’s existence, but both choose to blame Andrei – not unreasonably under the circumstances.
— dvdtimes.co.uk

Review:

At the center of the film is a simmering middle age crisis. The hero, an English professor living in Leningrad (now known, once again, as St. Petersburg) is helplessly caught up in his own life. Of course, a devoted wife, a loving mistress, a grownup daughter, a decent apartment in a beautiful city, and a cushy academic job may all sound like pretty good living. But for Andrei Buzykin, it all just keeps on boiling over. Well, that’s not all he has. There is more: a clueless professorial colleague from Denmark staying nearby, a drunken neighbor, and a hapless coworker. The Danish professor rings the doorbell at every sunrise and invites to go jogging. The drunken neighbor shows up whenever he wishes and demands to sit down drinking. The hapless coworker is in constant need of professional rescue. And our gentle hero is incapable of saying no.

As Buzykin desperately tries to keep up with his increasingly uncontrollable life, the film builds up the sort of quiet, subtle hilarity that can only be found in a most masterful of comedies. His dire personal predicament is so absurdly self-inflicted and, on the other hand, so universally human, that one cannot help both laughing at Buzykin and empathizing with him. Generous, talented and charismatic, Buzykin unwittingly attracts other people, whom he then seems utterly unable to reject.

The personal problems snowball slowly but surely, resulting in a spectacular crescendo. The wife is claiming betrayal. The mistress is declaring a breakup. The daughter is flying off with her maverick husband to Siberia. The coworker claims she is about to get fired. His own career is in a nosedive. The Danish professor gets involved with the drunken neighbor and is arrested for disorderly conduct. And that’s when the community center calls and demands from Buzykin an urgent lecture on literature.

The marvelous twists at the end come across as both completely natural and strikingly original. The film, as a whole, thanks to its realist and lyrical style of delivery, is never close to becoming a farce. In fact, it is difficult to regard Autumn Marathon even as a pure comedy. Years after the film was made, its director, Georgi Daneliya, reminisced in an interview about a conversation he had with a Soviet censor right after the project’s completion. Struggling to classify Autumn Marathon by category after seeing it, the censor demanded to know what genre the film belonged to. “Well”, Daneliya replied, “it’s a sad comedy.” The censor acquiesced, but insisted that Daneliya insert the phrase “a sad comedy” in the opening credits “so that the viewer could understand what he was seeing.” Daneliya did just that, and Autumn Marathon, thus, staked out its place as the pioneer of a new genre.

For all of its universality, Autumn Marathon has a story to tell about the world it was made in. The first Soviet “adultery movie”, it was a product of an era of neglect, rather than any genuine political liberalization. The government was waging a war for Communism in Afghanistan, and domestic political controls were as tight as ever. But the people were largely permitted to pursue happiness and western-style normalcy within the confines of Soviet political authoritarianism and creeping economic decay. Such personal pursuits occupy the central stage in Autumn Marathon. What makes the film extraordinary in the Soviet context is its complete lack of political overtures a la socialist realism.

Aside from its great cinematic appeal, Autumn Marathon should fascinate Russophiles of all stripes. The film contains many beautiful takes of Leningrad, as it shows Buzykin running around the city and frantically trying to make his way over its famous drawbridges before they get raised. Various aspects of Soviet and Russian life are touched upon. The film is particularly interesting as a social study, as it gently mocks the Soviet intelligentsia personified by its hero. An absolute marvel is the drinking episode, which – in the view of this reviewer – makes for the best drinking scene in the history of world cinema.
— epinions.com

https://nitro.download/view/3861455FC634BB0/Autumn_Marathon_(1979)_–_Georgi_Daneliya.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/34AFDDD4C5490AA/Autumn_Marathon_(1979)_–_Georgi_Daneliya.srt

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English (srt)

The post Georgi Daneliya – Osenniy marafon AKA Autumn Marathon (1979) first appeared on Cinema of the World.