OBLOMOV Movie Review

A Few Days in the Life
of I.I. Oblomov
Neskolko Dnel iz Zhizni
I.I. Oblomov

This is a wonderful film version of the classic 19th-century Ivan Goncharov novel about a symbolically inert Russian aristocrat whose childhood friend helps him find a reason to get up out of the house and back into life. This is a stately, deliberate, funny, and eloquent picture that in some ways represents a triumph of cinematic resourcefulness on the part of director Nikita Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun); he manages to show a man doing almost literally nothing for the better part of two hours, and keeps it not only interesting but lively and suspenseful. Goncharov's Oblomov (played engagingly here by Oleg Tabakov) is a character whose name has entered the language as shorthand for any person who's existing in this kind of disinterested, sedentary state.

NEXT STOP … A Slave of Love, Burnt by the Sun, The Designated Mourner

1981 145m/C RU Oleg Tabakov, Elena Solovei; D: Nikita Mikhalkov. VHS TPV,KIV,AUD