Beanpole

One of the best movies about the Soviet experience of WWII that I've ever seen. Similar to "Come and See," though much less violent. Captures the desperation that residents of Leningrad experienced after the siege (the entire film takes place in the year after the war).

From a cursory reading of reviews when this movie came out, I thought it took place during the siege of Leningrad during WWII. It actually takes place a year after the end of the war, but the trauma and broken people from the aftermath are clearly front and center in this film. Beanpole is simply a term used to describe people who are tall and thin. It is a tightly focused film about Masha and Iya (beanpole) and brings in Alexander wooing Masha. Iya works in a hospital tending to wounded soldiers as they try and recover, and Masha manages to get a job there also. They form a bond of two broken souls trying to go forward in their lives. Masha had served at the front. So yes, this is very much a woman’s film. On a night out among the very dreary setting of the area, they meet Alexander and friend who are in a car. Alexander latches onto to Masha, and Masha, perhaps deluding herself, has hope for a better future with him. It is clear that Alexander is not in the same economic class as the two of them. Masha wants a baby, but is infertile, and wants Iya to carry a baby for her. Masha travels with Alexander to met his family, where he tells them he wants to marry her and she wants to live with them with ‘her’ baby. That rips open raw emotions. This is not a feel good movie of the year. This is a movie of people in very grim circumstances forever changed by war. After the war in Russia, it was not the time of milk and honey. It is a film of emotions, which will not be everyone’s cup of tea.

I'd call this an "also ran" film. Beautiful art direction and cinematography, casting and direction. A rich thing on the screen in so many ways. And a cutting reminder that the wages of war are so very real, for the people who didn't have any cause at all to wage war themselves, and didn't consent to the waging of war, much less to its risks and impacts. All of this is important and the film brings it home, hard-core, and validly. However, it ultimately disappoints, as if the global indie film world warped it as Hollywood and Bollywood warp the films around them, imposing an ultimatum of compliance with their values and expectations, or else. I am talking about the triviality of this film's plot-arc endpoint -- a contemporary but very tired lesbian trope of a "happy" ending. It seemed meant to land somewhere else, somewhere more important. But it didn't. It could have, in true Russian literature style, have let the Beanpole be a suicidal or incidental tram casualty. It could have . . . gone almost anywhere else than where it did . . . but it didn't. To me, that stinks of undue influence on the part of whatever film industry heavy hand that wrestled this film into submission. I hope to see more truly independent and fully free expressions of the valid material that this film brought to our eyes and minds, but seemingly was forced to abandon to create a "happy" ending under indie film industry duress. It could have hit harder, and thereby validated all of the most serious, complex, contradictory and important material that built this film in the first place . . . and promised so much throughout its intense and potentialy perception-shifting first two hours . . . but the last 19 minutes devolved into a sorry artistic compromise. I don't know the story of this film's development, but it seems fraught, and there certainly were factors outside the creative center of the film that bent it into the shape we see in its actual released form. Brilliant. Sad. Genius. Disappointing. Big brave work in its making. Small minds seem to have been interfering. So there's my take.

Beautiful film. The sentiment at its core is very similar to what is expressed by Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” poem. The final stanza: Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night.It is the need to find in at least one other person a reciprocal love, refuge from a very troublesome world, a steady hold and mutual engagement with honesty, trust, etc. That this other person is of the same gender does not diminish in the least what seems a universal human need.

I cannot claim to "like" this film. Or love it. The subject matter doesn't lend itself to such words. But it is a very good movie to watch, and certainly piques my interest in the 1980's publication the film 's openly used as source material for the movie. Broken people, of course, people this story, but what gives this film life is brilliant acting & cinematography, as well as historical realism. It is utterly horrific that female soldiers were used, abused, and then abused again once they came home. Is it any wonder that delusional thinking might hold sway when the goal is to self-treat and heal from the hell they've endured?War scars us in lots of small ways, that others might not see, when faced with the more obvious and unavoidable ways in which it can do so. Most films focus on the fighting of war itself, as if everything might immediately return to a state of normalcy afterward, like magic. As if the aftermath of war isn't worth talking about. Such attitudes do the world a disservice. We need stories of war's aftermath because the rebuilding/restoring of health, etc. is the hardest part both on the personal level and the communities in which they live.So am I glad I saw this film? Absolutely. You should too.

Good product good service

As a lover of foreign cinema I liked this, it’s a trifle slow and long, but what draws you in is the cinematography and use of colour, some scenes are mesmerisingly beautiful. Given the period during which this was set you can imagine the world in which Vladimir Putin grew up, which might provide insight into his current mindset

Outstanding acting in this war time setting depicted for this film.....intricate storyline that has your attention from start to end and filmed in such depth......thank you!

Thought provoking Powerful disturbing enriching rewarding drama kind film you can talk a long even after repeated viewing s must watch