Venue: Venice Film Festival, In Competition
A film about the Sixties' space race told from the Russian p.o.v.? Yuri Gagarin in the Cosmodrome preparing for the first manned space flight? How could a film with a concept like that miss, especially when shot by hot young filmmaker Alexey German, Jr.? Unfortunately, "Paper Soldier" does miss, at least as far as paying audiences are concerned, though this handsome looking, theatrical-style film can count on festival hosannas from auds into sophisticated filmmaking and complexly orchestrated camerawork.
But however good the film looks on screen, it's a pity the script-writers vote to ignore the subject's dramatic potential in favor of chattering Chekhovian dialogue and dense, incomprehensible characters.
The theme that finally emerges is fascinating enough: the dashed hopes of the Russian intelligentsia following the 1960's thaw in East-West relations, when freedom and happiness seemed around the corner and ultimately failed to materialize.
A film about the Sixties' space race told from the Russian p.o.v.? Yuri Gagarin in the Cosmodrome preparing for the first manned space flight? How could a film with a concept like that miss, especially when shot by hot young filmmaker Alexey German, Jr.? Unfortunately, "Paper Soldier" does miss, at least as far as paying audiences are concerned, though this handsome looking, theatrical-style film can count on festival hosannas from auds into sophisticated filmmaking and complexly orchestrated camerawork.
But however good the film looks on screen, it's a pity the script-writers vote to ignore the subject's dramatic potential in favor of chattering Chekhovian dialogue and dense, incomprehensible characters.
The theme that finally emerges is fascinating enough: the dashed hopes of the Russian intelligentsia following the 1960's thaw in East-West relations, when freedom and happiness seemed around the corner and ultimately failed to materialize.
- 9/4/2008
- by By Deborah Young
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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