1979 ‘Сибириада’ Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky
The story about a very small god-forgotten village in Siberia reflects the history of Russia from the beginning of the century till the early 1980s. Three generations try to find the land of happiness and to give it to the people. One builds the road through taiga to the star over horizon, the second 'build communism' and the third searches for oil.
Nikita Mikhalkov Vitali Solomin Sergey Shakurov Natalya Andreychenko Lyudmila Gurchenko Vladimir Samoylov Mikhail Kononov Nikolai Skorobogatov Pavel Kadochnikov Evgeniy Leonov-Gladyshev Yevgeni Perov Konstantin Grigorev Dmitriy Buzylyov-Kretso Ivan Dmitriev Yelena Koreneva Aleksandr Yanvaryov Pascal Aubier Ruslan Mikaberidze Maksim Munzuk Igor Okhlupin Leonid Pleshakov Vladimir Simonov Vadim Vilsky Nadezhda Butyrtseva Larisa Negreeva Aleksandr Adabashyan Aleksandr Pankratov-Chyornyy Gennadiy Yukhtin Anna Frolovtseva Show All…
Sången om Sibirien, Sibiriada, 西伯利亚颂, Siberiada, Σιβηριάδα, Sibiriade, Sibériade, Szibériáda, Sibiriāde, 西伯利亚之歌
France
Cannes Film Festival
France
USSR
USSR
Netherlands12
Greece
France
Greece
Netherlands
USSR
Initiated as a simple, government-assigned project about the life of oil workers, Siberiade grew into a sprawling, four part, 275-minute epic about love of country, hatred between families, appreciation of home, and the perpetual march of progress. Set in Elan, a small, Siberian town, the film covers nearly a century of history, largely through the mechanism of a father and son: Nikolai Ustyuzhanin (Vitaly Solomin, whose picture on Wikipedia is the stuff of legends, or at least it should be), and his son Aleksei (Nikita Mikhalkov).
Both men are ferociously charismatic, but also inclined to keep people at an arm's length, preferring jovial superficiality to the intimacy of emotional connection. And both move in and out of the life of…
Huge swaths of Russian history represented as a sprawling, moving canvas. The scale of which can't be properly appreciated until you've stepped back to observe the full picture on display. A history of revolution, disillusionment, national pride, and hardship. Men cutting through a dense Siberian forest to build a road with no discernable end in sight. Holding out hope for the unforeseen future of their homeland. With each decade chronicled, a rebellious spirit is continuously fostered, inherited from one generation to the next. Whether it's on the battlefield, in the workforce, or on the political stage, this is no place for the weak-willed.
And as the past dies to allow the future a chance to live, so too does this…
Magnificent sprawling mess, almost too much movie to absorb -- there's enough here for three films, and all three would have been brilliant.
This is not a film about politics.
Political actors appear *in* it, but that is not why they're there. The social strata and political titles they hold are incidental to their motivations. What are their motivations? Lust, petty jealousy, revenge for getting slapped, and a desire to protect the eternal magic of the Taiga. I don't think even the Narodniks had those in their platform.
The village of Yelen (OK, it's barely even a village, there are like four houses total) is full of cruel people who live in the cruelest part of the world. There is magic out in the woods, but it stops at the village palisade. Inside, people wrestle in pig pens, torment each other with bombs,…
What I love about branching out and finding new films is how directors shoot their pictures. I’ve seen a lot by now, and even by seeing many, sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised to see something oddly different. Putting Siberiade on tonight, I expected for it to be an overly long 4hr+ Russian drama and that’s where my thought train ended. Instead, I felt a change in scenery as it felt a mix of Boyhood and Come and See with a blend of drama in the mix. It was an interesting blend which I didn’t expect, but I am glad I sat through it even though feeling the running time.
I’m not entirely sure how this was…
I always feel reassured when I see Mosfilm's rotating Рабо́чий и колхо́зница monument before the opening credits but for someone who spent a decent chunk of his twenties absorbing Marxist critical theory, I'm not particularly well-versed in Soviet cinema, at least beyond the major, most expected touchstones. And this feels like a major, major touchstone, in the Alexander Nevsky, Andrei Rublev stratosphere. Konchalovsky's working on an enormous canvas here — larger even than either of the two aforementioned films. In fact I can't help but wonder if Siberiade was intended as a sort of Soviet analog to Bertolucci's 1900, not just due to its formidable length and generational sweep but also in that both films end in a sort of…
People live, die, live, die
The children grow up to become adults
live, die, live, die
Conditions change on the countryside
men go off to war, the women wait, some return
Eventually, machines come, Moscow calls
but it takes centuries of people living, dying
The trees, the valleys, the sky, the lake
they all look the same
مشهد النهاية ايقوني صراحة ومستحيل انساه
بشكل عام الفلم فيه مشاهد كثير جميلة جدا ورائعه لكن كفلمحسيت بملل اكثر من مره وفيه فترات فقدت فيها الاهتمام شوي للاسف، بس فلم يستاهل المتابعه
I was chained to the wall for four years by....a scholar.
Who else but Konchalovsky could have spent a career flitting effortlessly between Arthouse Soviet filmmaking and New Hollywood styles whilst inseminating both modes of filmmaking with characteristics of the other? Add this to the list of films with occasionally diegetic scoring, alongside I Walked With A Zombie and Paddington 2 and I'm sure many other favourites that I'm forgetting.
After watching this movie you will feel as if you have watched all the movies.
After watching Runaway Train (flawed, happily deranged, and ultimately worth seeing), I looked into the director, Andrei Konchalovsky. Lo and behold, the man was one of the writers of Tarkovsky films Ivan's Childhood and Andrei Rublev.
Interesting! The main film I saw mentioned of his was a “epic” by the name Siberiade.
A 260 minute long multi-generational saga spanning almost 80 years (1907-1979) in scope?! Winner of the Grand Prix at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival? How had I never heard of this? I immediately tracked it down to remedy this error.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You know, I really am afraid that one day I'll run out of movies like this. Secret treasures that pop up with a little research. Like a…
