Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

This is the tale of three Russian women who are very close friends and the paths they took in life. It spans over 20 years. The story could happen in almost any large city in the world, but it is an added touch that it takes place in Moscow during the Communist rule. One gets an interesting insight into life there at that time.

After a while the good scenes start to drop in: Katerina is chosen to give a tv-interview while operating her machine. The very professional tv-reporter gives her a scrap of paper with prefabricated answers: Of course, she does not deliver. She has an affair with Gurin, the cameraman, and becomes pregnant. When she informs him he reacts like the "hero" in a french nouvell-vague-film: sulky because he is forced to play the baddie, anxious not to miss an appointment...He is such a coward that he even sends his mother to settle this affair for him. Suddenly Mom turns up in Katerina's rooming-house and treats her with disdain: She is not willing to relinquish even one square meter of her new two-room-apartment. Katerina refuses her settlement...

Twenty years later: Antonina is happily married to Nikolai and a mother of three. The other girls are unmarried. Lyudmila works in a department store, is harassed by an alcoholic ex-lover, but is still playing her old game: Wouldn't it be wonderful to be the wife of a general? Katerina lives together with her daughter Alexandra. She owns a large apartment (For Moscow standards), a car, and is now director of the factory. She has an affair with a married man, but she is not happy. But love comes when she meets the sly and charming Gosha, a locksmith, who announces very soon to Alexandra that he has the intention to marry her mother. He is even willing to beat the daylights out of the Moscow maffia who threatens Alexandra's boyfriend. Suddenly Gurin reappears: after two failed marriages he wants to see his daughter. (Katerina can't resist to ask why he did not bring his mom). But he manages to scare Gosha away. Katerina is desperate: how will she ever be able to find the man she loves, if all she knows of him is his profession and his nickname? Nikolai volunteers. Mission: find Katerina's runaway lover, if necessary by secret-agent-means...

Moscow Guys & Moscow Dolls. Moscow dogs & Moscow maffia. Moscow apartments & Moscow factories. Moscow marriage-brokers (The shortage of men is so serious that they refuse femals clients!). Moscow barbecues under Moscow birch-trees. This film is the soviet answer to Woody Allen's MANHATTAN - the director's declaration of love for his city. There have been some disappointed comments when this film won the best-foreign-film-oscar in 1980, but some critics always nag. It's pretty long, but don't forget that russians have big hearts and much to say. Besides, if you watch this film on video, you can interrupt them as often as you want...