Movies & TV

I haven't watched it yet but Volga Volga was supposed to have been Stalin's favorite film.

Not quite soviet, but 'Hourglass Sanatorium' is great.

If you're not limited to full length films, how about some of the classic Soviet cartoons?

• The Bremen Town Musicians (Бременские музыканты) (20 min)
• The Hedgehog in the Fog (Ёжик в Тумане) (10 min)
• Cheburashka (Чебурашка) (4 films about 20 mins each)

While I love Tarkovsky movies, I don't think any of his films can be called upbeat. Solaris (Солярис) (1972) is the most accessible, but I'd say too broody for someone who wants an action movie. It's more of a slow reflective film.

I haven't watched it yet, but maybe Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Тіні забутих предків) by Sergei Paradjanov could be a typical narrative driven bildungsroman.

How has no one mentioned War and Peace, one of the best movies ever???

Would she be interested in Sergei Eisenstein?

• The Strike: A silent movie about workers striking at a factory. It has some cinematography that is way beyond it's time
• Battleship Potemkin: If you are into prevention films you have to watch this silent move about a mutiny at a tsarist battleship, simply because it has been referenced in so many other works.
• Alexander Nevsky: This one is a talkie. It is a period drama about the medieval fight to kick the Teutonic Order (here used as a barely hidden historical standin for the Nazis) out of Russia. It had a huge budget and is kind of famous for the reenactment of a grand battle on a frozen lake.

Gotta be Andrey Rublev, a very long grayscale film broke up into segments around a famous historical christian painter's life. Probably would not have gotten made outside the soviet union

In terms of adventure, I enjoy a few Civil war era "Easterns". My favourite is White Sun of the Desert which is a classic and famously watched by cosmonauts before launch.

"White Sun of the Desert" perhaps. It's a tradition for cosmonauts to watch it before going up. It's a Soviet 'eastern' (akin in very vague terms to western westerns).

Gentlemen of Fortune is another, light viewing. Maybe Kin-Dza-Dza though it is a bizarre film and not enjoyable in a straightforward way, kind of absurdist.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (1924) is a silent but kind of a Buster Keaton style comedy.

She's going to miss out on a lot of the best movies with opinions like those. Stalker in particular is hardly that depressing, it's a gorgeous film.

I'd recommend looking into Tarkovsky films yourself and finding one. Andrei Rublev for example.

Can't help with your title question, but something your wife might like that is a comedy adventure film is "Джентльмены удачи". Although, if you're watching in English the comedy might not translate.

Definitely a classic is "Solaris" (1972 film) by Andrei Tarkovsky. It has a mix of sci-fi and drama, but I can't tell more without spoiling it. It definitely makes you think ... Also other Tarkovsky films have been praised, like "Stalker" that you mentioned. So maybe check out his filmography?

Edit: Something completely different is "The Mystery of the Third Planet" (1981) by Roman Kachanov. It is an animated sci-fi film for children, but also fun to watch as an adult because of the absurd storyline and humour.

Other films I have in mind, too, but don't remember their exact titles now. Will edit this post, if I recall ... Edit: You might want to have a look at the Wikipedia list differentiating by age and/or genre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_Soviet_Union

Stalker is not depressing, I'm not sure why she got that idea. It's contemplative, melancholic, but triumphant.

Check out The Ascent. Soy Cuba is one of the greatest films of all time too.