ANNA Movie Review

Anna: From Six Till Eighteen
Anna: Ot Shesti do Vosemnadtsati

Filmed over a period of thirteen years beginning in 1980, this extraordinary work by Russia's justly celebrated Nikita Mikhalkov (A Slave of Love, Burnt by the Sun) is both a documentary portrait of the collapse of the Soviet Union and, simultaneously, a tender, fascinating, epic home movie chronicling the maturing of the director's daughter Anna, from ages six through 18. Each year, Mikhalkov asks Anna the same five questions, and her changing answers reflect not only the ordinary and universal evolution of concerns that a young person faces, but also unexpectedly parallel the dramatic changes that the Soviet Union itself went through, from hard-line party rule to Perestroika to the brink of capitalism itself. Anna is that rare political documentary that manages to reveal a huge, changing landscape through the eyes of one individual. As always, the fate of millions is vastly more difficult to relate to than the emotions and choices of a single human being. Knowing this, Mikhalkov has fashioned a human-scaled vision of recent history that is accessible, moving, and honest. Anna is a modest undertaking, but a stirring achievement.

NEXT STOP … A Slave of Love, Oblomov, 28 Up

1993 99m/C Nikita Mikhalkov, Nadia Mikhalkov, Anna Mikhalkov; D: Nikita Mikhalkov; W: Nikita Mikhalkov; C: Pavel Lebeshev, Vadim Yusov; M: Eduard Artemyev. NYR