Bleak view of postwar Russia, oppressively photographed in army-fatigues green and khaki brown, save for a semi-sunny brief interlude at the Black Sea. Shameless heart-tugging in the form of a saucer-eyed tyke who was born in the mud and who keeps seeing the ghost of the father he never knew. What he's got in place of a father is a dog-eat-dog con man with a tattoo of Stalin on his chest. The movie's most hackneyed shot -- the teary tyke running hopelessly after the paddy wagon carting away his surrogate dad -- is repeated at the end in slow-motion, as if it needed to be savored. With Vladimir Mashkov, Ekaterina Rednikova, and Misha Philipchuk; written and directed by Pavel Chukhrai. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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