Zivot a neobycejna dobrodruzstvi vojaka Ivana Conkina
Czech Republic / England / France,
1994, 106 min
Shown in 1995
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jiri Menzel
- prod
-
Eric Abraham
- scr
-
Zdenek Sverak
- cam
-
Jaromir Sofr
- editor
-
Jiri Brozek
- cast
-
Gennady Nazarov, Zoya Buryak, Vladimir Ilyin, Valeri Zolotukhin, Marian Labuda
- source
-
Portobello Pictures
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Jiri Menzel in person.
OTHER
Smuggled out of the Soviet Union in the same way as Pasternak and Solzhenitzyn’s books had been—via the YMCA in Paris—Vladimir Voinovich’s legendary comic novel was first published in the West in 1969. The New York Times called it “The Soviet Catch-22, as written by a latter-day Gogol.” Ridiculing the Party, the KGB, the Red Army and the entire bureaucracy of the Soviet Union, the book’s liberating power of laughter earned it a 20-year ban and its author was stripped of his citizenship and sent into exile. A long effort to bring Voinovich’s humor to the screen has paid off in this irresistible film, directed by Czech master Jiri Menzel (Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement, SFIFF 1990), who brings his gently humorous touch—knowing and pointed, but without sarcasm— to this tale of the triumph of Chonkin, a simple soldier. Amidst the chaos of 1941 Russia he is sent to guard a downed biplane in the remote village of Red End (“Dead End” in pre-Bolshevik days). Forgotten by his superiors as World War II breaks out, Chonkin becomes the center of a chain of hilarious misunderstandings, which escalate until a grotesque and quite successful comic finale.
FACTOID #35
The first film retrospective accompanying a tribute at the Festival was a Tribute to Warner Bros., featuring Jack L. Warner in person, October 26, 1966.
