The Long Farewell (Dolgije prowody)

This March, three feature films from the last decades of the Soviet Union are shown at the Revolverkino. The broad spectrum of film production is surprising: the film studios of Turkmenistan, Leningrad, and Odessa produced films that – even if they were immediately banned – are unthinkable in the West: Extremely headstrong, erratic and pointed, with confused heroines and rebellious protagonists who do not change.

Five-Pointed Star: Soviet Extremes shows three films of very different styles by Alexander Sokurow, Georgi Danelija and Kira Muratova.
The semidocumentary Days of the Eclipse is a metaphysical description of the soul of a strikingly handsome Leningrad paediatrician in a Turkmen town on the coast of the Caspian Sea. With Autumn Marathon, the programme also features a famous, annually broadcasted Leningrad comedy about a man who cannot say “no”. A supporting actor is the German, Russophile Professor Hansen, whose messed-up Russian and misunderstood idioms have entered the vocabulary of Soviet citizens.
The Long Farewell, in contrast, was a banned film, which first premiered in 1987. The tragicomedy from Odessa revolves around a mother who is supposed to let her adult son go – and tackles the situation with coquetries and hysteria.