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| Images courtesy of Gorky Film Studio |
The coming-of-age youth story in Soviet Union saw many a
number of children’s or otherwise teenager’s movies being generated across the
cinematic playgrounds laid out by companies like Mosfilm and Gorky Film Studio,
among the most notable examples including but not limited to Sergei Solovyov’s 100
Days After Childhood and Assa, Karen Shakhnazarov’s Courier
and Rolan Bykov’s devastating Scarecrow.
With such interest on the vast gulf between adolescence and adulthood with
often recurring failures to find a middle ground, one frequent purveyor of Eastern
European stories focused on the consequences of such a mutual misunderstanding
is long time youth dramedy filmmaker Ilya Frez and his 1981 somber tragicomedy Love
and Lies or as originally titled Could One Imagine?
A filmmaker whose work dates back to the 1940s, often
dealing in youth or children’s tales typically set in schools with elements of
romantic awakenings in his young characters or social division over world
events beyond their control, Frez is perhaps best known for his 1968 romcom I
Loved You which was not only a box office leader in Soviet cinemas, but
also internationally as well. With his
1981 Could One Imagine? based on the novella by Galina Shcherbakova, the
director found in the project renewed interest in his recurring themes of
natural youthful yearning versus imposed civilized social demands set forth by
generational elders. A kind of teen
Russian Romeo & Juliet doomed love affair loosely drawn from a life
experience involving author Shcherbakova’s own son, the story is both personal
and emblematic to all who have been told they’re not allowed to follow their
heart.
Doe-eyed high-school girl Katya (Tatyana Aksyuta) moves into
a new neighborhood school district and upon her first day at in class catches
the eye of classmate Roman (Nikita Mikhaylovsky) and they hit it off as friends
budding into young naïve love, much to the chagrin of their respective parents
taken aback by the strength of their children’s bond. For one thing, the boy’s father Konstantin
(Albert Filozov) at one point was in love with the girl’s mother Lyudmila
(Irina Miroshnichenko) which sparks jealousy from his legally married wife Vera
(Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina) who fiercely vows to break the young lovebirds
apart by transferring her son to another school and forbidding them to
meet. Naturally their teenage bond
nevertheless strengthens anyway and soon the domineering and conniving Vera
will go as far as deceiving her own son as well as drawing his equally
curmudgeonly grandmother into her charade and personal vendetta.
Simultaneously a young love story and a study of the
consequences of socially imposed forces designed to interfere based on one’s
own fears and prejudices, Could One Imagine? is a somber, sobering look
at overprotective parenting, longstanding personal grudges overriding logical
judgment and the degrees with which people will go to keep others apart as well
as a testament to the power of love and mutual attraction. Featuring an impassioned if not mournful
score by Through the Thorns to the Stars composer Alexey Rybnikov and
arresting 1.33:1 cinematography of Gasan Tutunov, the film achieves a
melancholic quality as the two kids played excellently by at-the-time
non-actors Tatyana Aksyuta and Nikita Mikhaylovsky find their idyllic
coexistence threatened by their parents over something neither side had
anything to do with. Fans of Karen
Shakhnazarov’s Zerograd should look for Leonid Filatov in a bit part,
though the film’s strongest performers are Lidiya Fedoseyeva-Shukshina as
Roman’s ironclad mother and Tatyana Pelttser as his even more domineering and
malicious grandmother.
Released theatrically in 1981, the film was a box office hit
on Soviet screens and was later voted the best film of the year before going to
the United States in 1982 under the title Love and Lies. Going on to win the Honorary diploma of
Portuguese International Film Festival of Children’s and Youth Films for
actress Tatyana Aksyuta, the film was also critically acclaimed with some
seeing it from both sides as a critique of not only parental overprotectiveness
but also of the naivete of young romance.
Almost more successful than the film itself was a track written by Rybnikov
and performed by Irina Otieva and Vera Sokolova which played at the end of the
film where it became hugely popular on radio play and years later in Danila
Kozlovsky’s sports drama Coach the song was sung in a cappella form.
Fans of the coming-of-age drama, the Soviet youth film and
emotional melodramas of love and yearning will find in Could One Imagine? a
most surprising if not touching portrait of the consequences of overparenting
as well as an ode to the hearts and minds of younger generations coming together
naturally. A bittersweet tearjerker that
functions almost like a heartstrings tugging Valentine, Could One Imagine? joins
such downbeat but hopeful youthful romantic fare as 100 Days After Childhood,
Assa and Courier as a keen observer of the early age bracket
coming to terms with the older while trying to find individuality, meaning and
some measure of happiness in this world.
If nothing else, buy the soundtrack album by Alexey Rybnikov which at
times has the distinctive aroma of a French romance.
--Andrew Kotwicki
