Little Vera (1988)

Original title

Маленькая Вера

Directed by

Vasili Pichul

Genre

drama film, romance film, teen film

Country

Soviet Union

Runtime

1h 55m

Rated

16

Rating

5.9 of 10 from 54 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A teenage girl in a provincial Soviet town feels stuck after finishing school. She struggles between her family's expectations and a desire for freedom. The story shows her search for escape in a grim setting.

bleakcynicalrestlessclaustrophobicrawprovocativemelancholicunsettling

What happens

Little Vera (Russian: Маленькая Вера, romanized: Malenkaya Vera), produced by Gorky Film Studio and released in 1988, is a film by Russian film director Vasili Pichul. The title in Russian is ambiguous and can also mean "Little Faith", symbolizing the characters' lack of hope (or a glimmer thereof). The film was the leader in ticket sales in the Soviet Union in 1988 with 54.9 million viewers, and was the most successful Soviet film in the US since the 1980 Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. Part of its popularity was due to being one of the first Soviet movies with an explicit sexual scene. The film's main character and namesake is a teenage girl, who just having finished school feels trapped in her provincial town. With its pessimistic and cynical view of Soviet society, the film was typical of its time (perestroika), during which many such films, in the style known as "chernukha" (roughly "black stuff"), were released. The script was written in 1983, but no producer could be found for another four years, after glasnost became a reality. The film received six awards and was nominated for eight more. Among its wins, it received "Best Actress" for Natalya Negoda at the Nika Awards in 1989. The film's director, Vasili Pichul, received the Special Jury Prize at the 1988 Montreal World Film Festival and FIPRESCI Prize at the 1988 Venice Film Festival. The soundtrack's main theme consists of two songs performed by Sofia Rotaru "Bylo no proshlo" (It Was, But It Has Gone) and "Tol'ko etovo malo" (Only This Is Not Enough), "the leitmotif of the perestroika classic Little Vera". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Posle voyny — mir (1988)
• Dear Yelena Sergeevna (1988)
• Free Fall (1988)
• Zapretnaya zona (1988)
• Dissident (1988)
• My Name Is Harlequin (1988)
• Meyl (1988)
• The Garden of Desires (1988)