A Soviet soldier, Andrei Sokolov, has been separated with his family by World War II. Suffering in Nazi captivity, he dreams of meeting his darlings after the victory. But cruel fate turned out otherwise.

Quote:
At first I thought this film would be the usual war film in total line with the politburo’s view on The Great War. But after 15 minutes in the film, something changes. First we have a scene in which Sokolof (the main character played by director Bondarcuk) comes home drunk – something I have never seen in an older Soviet movie, than the war breaks out and after a slightly over the top scene in which Sokolof says goodbye to his family all hell breaks loose. The scene where Sokolof drives his car filled with ammunition across the front-line is incredible, and this is only the beginning of the war. Although the story sometimes is quit melodramatic, the photography of the film is exceptional modern for a film made in 1959. In beautiful black and white the viewer witnesses the whole damn thing called war. The film is not as heartbreaking and in-your-face as Come And See by Klimov, but Klimov must have seen this film and used it as an inspiration. Russia lost 20 million people during the second world war (some because of Stalin) but what it meant for and how it changed the life of ordinary people is all to clear in this story. This man’s fate as he calls it. Although the film, I suppose, is rare, see it if you ever have a chance.

The.Destiny.of.a.Man.1959.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 41 min
Size: 	2.25 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	790x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.372
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	3 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.275
Audio
#1:  	Russian 1.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/78C52A5DB6D8EDD/The.Destiny.of.a.Man.1959.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/BBB0992604531AD/The.Destiny.of.a.Man.1959.BDRIP.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.srt

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Sergey Bondarchuk – Sudba cheloveka AKA Destiny of a Man (1959) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm. For many years the brother (Uncle Vanya) has sent the farm’s proceeds to the professor, while receiving only a small salary himself. Sonya, the professor’s daughter, who is about the same age as his new wife, also lives on the estate. The professor is pompous, vain, and irritable. He calls the doctor (Astrov) to treat his gout, only to send him away without seeing him. Astrov is an experienced physician who performs his job conscientiously, but has lost all idealism and spends much of his time drinking. The presence of Yelena introduces a bit of sexual tension into the household. Astrov and Uncle Vanya both fall in love with Yelena; she spurns them both. Meanwhile, Sonya is in love with Astrov, who fails even to notice her. Finally, when the professor announces he wants to sell the estate, Vanya, whose admiration for the man died with his sister, tries to kill him.

2.03GB | 1h 38m | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/43F69120A0C43E0/Uncle.Vanya.1970.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.Rutracker.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Andrey Konchalovskiy – Dyadya Vanya AKA Uncle Vanya (1970) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
During the Battle of Sutjeska, partisan troops must endure 24 hours of big and heavy attacks on German units Ljubino grave, to the main Partisan units, with the wounded and the Supreme Headquarters, pulled out the ring that is tightened around them.

1.36GB | 1h 37mn | 720×544 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/6B26D724C653735/Vrhovi_Zelengore_(1976).avi
https://nitro.download/view/5391187A21F6290/Vrhovi_Zelengore_(1976).srt

Language(s):Serbo-Croatian
Subtitles:English

The post Zdravko Velimirovic – Vrhovi Zelengore AKA The Peaks of Zelengore (1976) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The Moorish general Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality it is all part of the scheme of a bitter ensign named Iago.

Review by The Little Songbird @IMDb:
I have always loved the poetry and intensity of Shakespeare’s dialogue in Othello, and I have also found the play one of his more dramatically concise ones. This Othello from Russia is excellent, and very interesting as well. It is handsome to look at, the photography flows nicely and the locations are splendid. The symbolic palette to emphasise Othello’s contrasts between physical and temperamental is also interestingly used. The film is smartly written and intelligently adapted and it is directed beautifully by Sergei Yutkevitch. The story is on the most part compelling though I did think Othello and Desdemona’s relationship was on the underdeveloped side and I was in two minds as whether the decision to downplay Othello’s increasing rage worked, in a way it made the relationship between Othello and Iago convincing but at the same time this side to Othello is a big part of the play and character, to downplay it made the jealousy angle less intense than it ought to be. What the story does do wonderfully is put more emphasis on the corruption of Othello’s nobility by Iago’s scheming. The whole false confidante(like when the two coo like turtle-doves in one scene) and manipulation of Othello is very well-executed here. The final scene is also very moving. The performances are very good, the best being the superbly scheming Iago of Andrei Popov. Sergei Bondarchuk is not quite in the same league as Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier but still makes for a handsome and commanding Othello, while Irina Skobtseva’s Desdemona is appropriately delicate and affecting. All in all, excellent on the whole. 8/10 Bethany Cox

1.94GB | 1 h 43 min | 765×574 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/041D717F50F17CE/Othello.1956.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.Rutracker.mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Sergei Yutkevich – Otello (1955) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet film industry set out to prove it could outdo Hollywood with a production that would dazzle the world: a titanic, awe-inspiring adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic tome in which the fates of three souls—the blundering, good-hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha—collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. Employing a cast of thousands and an array of innovative camera techniques, director Sergei Bondarchuk conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and breathtaking battles that overwhelm with their expressionistic power. As a statement of Soviet cinema’s might, War and Peace succeeded wildly, garnering the Academy Award for best foreign-language film and setting a new standard for epic moviemaking.

https://nitro.download/view/CE8D3BE4A4787E3/Voyna.i.mir.Part.1.Andrei.Bolkonsky.1966.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/3AAC181114649AC/Voyna.i.mir.Part.2.Natasha.Rostova.1966.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/BC2FBA7E4DB53C7/Voyna.i.mir.Part.3.The.Year.1812.1966.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv https://nitro.download/view/888D5003D26F42B/Voyna.i.mir.Part.4.Pierre.Bezukhov.1966.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language:Russian, German, French
Subtitles:English

The post Sergei Bondarchuk – Voyna i mir AKA War and Peace (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm. For many years the brother (Uncle Vanya) has sent the farm’s proceeds to the professor, while receiving only a small salary himself. Sonya, the professor’s daughter, who is about the same age as his new wife, also lives on the estate. The professor is pompous, vain, and irritable. He calls the doctor (Astrov) to treat his gout, only to send him away without seeing him. Astrov is an experienced physician who performs his job conscientiously, but has lost all idealism and spends much of his time drinking. The presence of Yelena introduces a bit of sexual tension into the household. Astrov and Uncle Vanya both fall in love with Yelena; she spurns them both. Meanwhile, Sonya is in love with Astrov, who fails even to notice her. Finally, when the professor announces he wants to sell the estate, Vanya, whose admiration for the man died with his sister, tries to kill him.

https://nitro.download/view/D52D388E7615A86/Dyadya.Vanya.1970.BluRay.720p.AC3.H264-MosFiLM.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/CF564989A83C691/Dyadya.Vanya.1970.BluRay.720p.AC3.H264-MosFiLM.srt

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Andrey Konchalovskiy – Dyadya Vanya AKA Uncle Vanya (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
In keeping with his previous film Il generale Della Rovere, filmmaker Roberto Rossellini pursues a wartime theme in this “personal epic” Era notte a Roma.
The film is set in Rome during the German occupation after the armistice on 8 September 1943.
The story concerns three Allied POWS, who escape from their camp and hide out in Rome. The trio is given shelter and aid by a beautiful young woman who deals with black market disguised as a nun, her partisan boyfriend and several other people.
The three prisoners (one is Russian, one English, one American) display a genuine warmth towards each other that probably is meant to reflect the three countries’ joint effort against Nazi Germany.
Just as the variety of Italians involved in their protection as well as in their pursuit seems to be meant to reflect the chaos and mistrust reigning in those dark days. Acts of courage alternate with acts of treachery.
For reasons that remain obscure, Era Notte a Roma was never initially given a widespread American release.

With regard to the Resistance, while the Communist-inspired press criticized the film’s “clerical-centric” vision, Morandini wrote that Rossellini had shown in the film the truly popular participation to the Resistance.
As a technical note, Rossellini adopted the Pancinor, a photographic lens of variable focal length, which would be later called zoom, which allowed him to move around and make long-lasting sequences where previously he would have made cuts, thus catching the actors’ expressions and minimizing editing.
Liberally drawn from Wikipedia

Quote:
Not in any circumstances to be missed – a full-length print of an overlooked Rossellini that was often cut by half an hour for commercial release, and now looks like true buried treasure. (Godard chose it as one of the ten best of 1961, along with Rocco e i suoi fratelli).
Opening as a kind of comedy in which women disguise themselves as nuns to win advantage in the wartime black market (watch for the recently late Laura Betti as one of the conniving “sisters”), ERA NOTTE A ROMA soon focuses on the dilemma of Esperia, a beautiful young woman impelled to hide three POWs in her attic: an English major, a Soviet sergeant (played by Sergei Bondarchuk), and an American pilot.
The relationship between the Allied fugitives and their fearful, reluctant hostess, and between her and her communist lover (the wonderful Renato Salvatori from Rocco e i suoi fratelli) gradually expands from the cramped quarters of their hideout to the rest of Rome, under siege by the Germans late in the war, and incorporates many vividly drawn characters, high and low – priests, doctors, Resistance fighters, an aristocratic Roman family whose American matriarch adores Mussolini, a defrocked priest who acts as German informer and whose physical disability Rossellini uses to signal moral infirmity.
Suspenseful, compelling, and very stirring, ERA NOTTE A ROMA is also one of Rossellini’s most explicitly Christian films. (A make-do Christmas dinner in the attic certainly counts among his most heartfelt expressions of charity and solidarity).
Returning to the setting and themes of Roma città aperta and Paisà, ERA NOTTE A ROMA seems like a surprising reversion for Rossellini after his radical films of the Fifties – never mind compared to its contemporaries, La dolce vita and L’avventura! – but is so rich in character, atmosphere, incident, and artistry that the “professionalism” of Rossellini’s approach seems more pleasantly retro than reactionary.
“ERA NOTTE A ROMA is perhaps Rossellini’s greatest war-themed film… Motifs common to Rossellini’s other war films (moral fortitude and religiosity in Roma città aperta; language and communication in Paisà; innocence and guilt in Deutschland im Jahre Null; courage in Il generale Della Rovere) all are found here” (Eric Sherman).
From cinemathequeontario

Quote:
Net reference to Roma città aperta, also emphasized by the title, as if to point out the voluntary opposition between the two.
Era Notte a Roma takes place completely in the dark, except for some scenes, while the film mentioned above takes place in daylight. This is as if Rossellini wanted to show his increasing pessimism in the face of the conditions in Italy, and the hopes of the postwar years, which had later vanished. The above statement is irrefutable by revisiting the historical events, that is, the fact that the arrival of the allies in the capital is proposed at night, despite the fact that this happened in broad daylight.

Esperia is the female lead at the core of the film, and her character is no longer honest, as the one portrayed by Anna Magnani, but she uses subterfuge, betrayal and duplicity. Despite this, her feelings are authentic, and the proof is that the director does not emphasize such negative tones, trying to show the more positive aspects of the woman.
Fortuitous events will ensure that Esperia, almost forcibly, accommodates in her home three prisoners escaped from the camp. The first moments of suspicion and fear by the woman, will give way to signs of solidarity, cooperation and friendship, as effects of a war that divides, but at the same time unites those who are in trouble, even with different customs, ideas and cultures. This element is often emphasized by the difficulty of understanding among the various characters.
Tiziano Costantini (translated)

http://nitroflare.com/view/9871A3657AB0548/Era_notte_a_roma_%281960%29.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/5228A13A1567E25/Era_notte_a_roma_%281960%29.Eng.srt

Language(s):Italian (some Eng, Rus, Ger)
Subtitles:English

The post Roberto Rossellini – Era notte a Roma AKA It Was Night in Rome [Long ver.] (1960) first appeared on Cinema of the World.