The problem is that the movie jumps from Russia in the 20s to Paris in the 40s, but the gap is depicted as closer to 10 years (i.e. the length of time for a girl to grow up.
In addition there weren't any pogroms in the USSR - they were a Tsarist phenomenon.
The movie goes from 1928 to 1941. If Susie is 6 when she leaves Russia she's be 19 during her time in Paris. As for the village, at the time you didn't need a reason to kill people in Russia. Stalin wasn't a nice guy
shareYour time frame is good. Germany actually invaded Paris June of 1940. I really enjoy this movie and have watched it many times but have never visited this forum. The music is beautiful and I enjoy movies from this time period having Johnny play a gypsy and riding a white horse is definitely a plus.
"The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers."
To say Stalin wasn't a "nice guy" doesn't answer the issue. It seems to me they are depicting a traditional pogrom which belongs in the Tsarist era.
shareI read from one film review or article that the people who burned young Suzie's village were supposed to be Cossacks. There were pogroms during the Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War that lasted till the 1920s and many Jews were killed in that period, though I notice that the film's story was supposed to begin in 1927. My interpretation is that when certain parts of a country are not under firm control, riots and attacks by (or against) certain racial or ethnic groups are not uncommon. This is still true in many parts of the world today.
shareYes, but true in the USSR in 1927???
shareI couldn't understand why the soldiers that do pogrom in this supposedly Russian Jewish village speak clear Polish...
Silence is Real Dance. My dance is all motion without. All silence within.
At the time, Poland and the USSR shared a border. At some point in the movie, I think Lola says that such-and-such village is on the Polish/Russian border. I assumed the village in question was Suzie's home, unless Lola is not originally from Moscow.
shareOrlando (the novel and the film) are also historically non-sensical (or rather, chrono-il-logical). But both Orlando as a film and The Man Who Cried as a film look good on screen (and sounds good in the case of TMWC).
I did not enjoy Orlando the film, nor did I think much of Orlando the novel, the novel came across to me as a misdirected indulgence of a woman insane.
But I do like TMWC (against objective judgment).
Two things bother me.
1. Cate Blanchett´s Russian accent tends to slip into a mildly Australian accent at the end of some sentences, she did this very same slipping also in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Maybe I am being too aurally sensitive, as I happen to be an Australian who learnt Russian at high school, but when another Australian feigns a Russian accent I notice any backsliding.
2. The father seems to become a director or producer or choreographer of Hollywood aquatic musical films of the 1930s. (Any clarification on this plotting ?) Did he change his name ? This plotting detracts from the rest of the film, because it makes the ending of the film unsatisfactory (improbable, an unlikely story, the ending is contrived).
I have my own idiosyncratic reasons for liking the synchronised swimming scenes, the other swimming pool scenes, and the (imagined ?) air attack and sinking of a ship, and all this does tie in with the father in the end, but what was the aesthetic point of it in Sally Potter´s mind ? I do not know and I cannot guess, other than that perhaps she wanted to tie everything together neatly at the end.
I have not found any other reference to the swimming elements in other board postings here.
I consider mysekf a history buff and all that nitpicking went right over my head. Oh, Jews didn't get burned out in 1927? Sorry, this is not presented as a documentary for history majors, it is a drama about wartime separations.
I always enjoy synchronized swimming by the ladies. You are correct, those scenes were too brief, but...
I miss Big Band music and talented singers. Leonard Cohen is my idol. Civility, harmony, unity!
Too late for pogroms too early for collectivization.
share