Wild East - Soviet Action Films

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

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Published on Saturday, 12 February 2011 04:52

Written by L E Shannon

The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Wild East: The Best of Soviet Action Films running February 11-17, 2011 at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater in New York City.

With the eastern steppes of the USSR serving for the Great Plains of the US, Soviet Easterns took metaphors from the American Western to dramatize the Civil War in Central Asia in the 1920s and 30s against Islamic Turkic basmachi rebels. Parallels abound as gunfighters, bounty hunters, traveling settlers and the spread of the railroad across the vast wilderness are used to turn the “decadent” American genre on its head.

While most of the films were made between 1969 and 1988, two were from the 1950's and one from 1936.

The works include:

Thirteen / Trinadsaty
dir. Mikhail Romm (1936)
Said to be inspired by John Ford’s The Lost Patrol, this is the kind of outdoor adventure film that would be a frequent vehicle in Soviet cinema. A group of Soviet soldiers are escorting some civilians through a harsh stretch of the Siberian desert when they are suddenly surrounded by a ruthless bandit gang. Romm celebrates the collective heroism of the group, rather than that of a single individual, like a good Comrade.

The Horsemen / Smelly Ludi
dir. K. Yudin (1950)
An innocent farm boy dreams of becoming a champion horse racer. But World War II interrupts and the boy and his prize-winning horse serve the war effort against the Nazis.  “Full of thrilling, fast-paced sequences that are clearly indebted to Hollywood westerns (as popular in the USSR as elsewhere, when they could be screened), The Horsemen was even briefly released in the United States.”

Miles of Fire / Ognenniye Versti
dir. S. Samsonov (1957)
A White Army (anti-communist) platoon lays siege to a southern city during the civil war. Led by a communist cadre, a group of resisters, including a nurse and a disguised White Army officer, attempt to escape the city.

White Sun of the Desert
dir. E. Motil (1969)
One of most popular Soviet films ever made, White Sun of the Desert was described by its director as a “cocktail of Russian folktales and the American western.” Ex-Red Army soldier traveling through a remote desert region in Turkmenistan gets caught up in a fight between an army unit and the forces of a local bandit leader.

The Seventh Bullet / Sedmaya pulya
dir. Ali Kham aev (1972)
As the Bolsheviks attempt to establish their authority among the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, rebel bands known as basmachis carry out deadly raids on peaceful villages. When most of the locals join forces with the basmachi leader, the area’s Communist leader decides to give himself up, hoping to convince the people that the leader just seeks to exploit them. The screenplay was co-written by Andrei Konchalovsky.

The Bodyguard / Telokhranitel
dir. Ali Khamraev (1979)
After the Red Army captures the basmachi rebel leader, the Soviet authorities decide to send him to Bukhara for safekeeping. As the journey there is arduous and fraught with danger, they ask a tough mountaineer and committed revolutionary to escort the prisoner.

The Cold Summer of ’53 / Kholodnoe leto pyatdesyat tretogo
dir. Aleksandr Proshkin (1988)
Soon after Stalin’s death in 1953, hundreds of prisoners were released from his gulags in the far reaches of Asia, including political prisoners and members of certain ethnic groups. But so were common criminals, and that summer the Soviet Union suffered an unprecedented crime wave. A group of just-released criminals attacks a remote settlement out on the steppes and the townspeople, aided by two recently released political prisoners, try to stop them.


Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Seagull Films in collaboration with Mosfilm and Mardjani Foundation.

For further information, visit http://filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/wildeast.html.

Wild East: The Best of Soviet Action Films
Feb 11 - 17, 2011

Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center
165 W 65th Street
New York City

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