Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears, a 1979 film directed by Vladimir Menshov, greatly surprised me upon viewing it. The first half and hour or so made me think that the film was going to be a cliché Sex In the City-esque type of production, but upon watching farther, I realized that Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears is in fact a witty and interesting movie. The two main characters, Katya and Lyudmila are the two single Muscovite women who by a strange series of events, are tasked with housesitting a luxurious Moscow apartment. During their stay there, Lyudmila convinces Katya to pretend to be the wealthy apartment owner's daughters. After doing so, Lyudmila throws a party and invites over numerous prestigious men to wine and dine. As the night progresses, one of the men, Rudolf, and Katya end up having relations which result in Katya becoming pregnant. Upon discovering their true identities, Rudolf wants nothing to do with Katya, leaving her pregnant and alone. She carries the baby to full term and gives birth to her daughter, Alexandra as a single mother.
Cut to twenty years later, during the Brehznev Stagnation. Katya is now a successful factory director, raising her daughter as she has for her entire life. After a sequence of events, she meets a man, Gosha with whom she falls in love. The two begin a relationship and soon after, the father of Katya's child, Rudolf, comes back into her life. He wants to see his daughter and in turn, messes things up with Gosha and Katya. Regardless, the two reconcile and the film ends with Katya professing her love (in a matter of words) for Gosha.
This is a tried and true method for romance films, but Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears made this idea into an interesting story. The dichotomy between Katya and Gosha when it came to finances was especially interesting; Gosha believed that a man should always make more than a woman, and when he eventually finds out that Katya makes more money than him, he leaves her. Katya is completely taken aback by this and does almost everything in her power to get Gosha back. This seems contradictory to her nature however; she was a singe mother for all of her life and got by just fine. Now that a man has entered the picture, she seems to be completely subservient to him.
Altogether, Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears was a movie that I do not regret watching in the least and one I hope to convince others to watch as well.
I agree that it's tempting early on to tag this as a "chick flick" (sort of a Soviet Steel Magolias...or Sex in the City type of thing), but it really goes far beyond that...and we start to see the depth of the storytelling in the second half.
ReplyDeletePlus, the details (down to everything that's on the walls or that we see in the background on the streets) are really, really well done--and convey the flavor of both the Thaw and Stagnation periods.