Love and Pigeons

Love and Pigeons
Directed by Vladimir Menshov
Written by Vladimir Gurkin
Starring Aleksandr Mikhailov
Nina Doroshina
Lyudmila Gurchenko
Music by Valentin Levashov
Cinematography Yuriy Nevskiy
Edited by R. Pesetskaya
Production
company
Release date
  • 7 January 1985 (1985-01-07)
Running time
 107 minutes
Country Soviet Union
Language Russian

Love and Pigeons (Russian: Любовь и голуби, translit. Lyubov i golubi) is a 1984 Soviet romantic comedy film by Vladimir Menshov whose previous film Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It is based on scriptwriter Vladimir Gurkin's play of the same name.[1]

The film was the leader of Soviet distribution in 1984 and sold some 44.5 million tickets.[2] An outdoor sculpture based on the film's characters was unveiled in Cheremkhovo, Siberia in 2011.[3]

Plot

Vasily Kuzyakin (Alexander Mikhailov), an employee of the forestry enterprise, who is fond of breeding pigeons, lives with his wife Nadezhda and three children: Lyuda, who returned from the city after parting with her husband, a cheerful fellow Lyonka and Olya, father's favorite. Once Vasily was injured during work, and then, in compensation for the damage caused to him, he was given a ticket to the resort. While staying at the sea resort, Vasily, a simple man from country-side, meets a corrupted city woman (Lyudmila Gurchenko), who lures away a man of the country (Alexander Mikhailov), indulging him in fantasies of urban comfort. While living at her city apartment, the man starts missing his family and eventually decides to return to his native village, where his wife and children miss him too.

Production

Vladimir Gurkin did not made up this story: it actually happened to his acquaintances who had the same surname as in film itself. The prototypes of Mitya and Shura were Gurkin’s grandparents.

Vladimir Menshov saw the play quite by accident. When he saw Nina Doroshina playing the role of Nadya in the Sovremennik theatre he decided to make a movie.

Shura – Natalya Tenyakova and Mitya - Sergei Yursky are husband and wife in real life.

In the script Nadya is a middle-aged woman and Shura is an old retired woman, whereas in real life Nina Doroshina who played Nadya is 10 years older than Natalya Tenyakova who played Shura in the film. At the time of filming Nina Doroshina was 50 years old and Natalya Tenyakova was 40.

The film was shot in Karelia, on the outskirts of the city of Medvezhyegorsk, in a house on the bank of the river Kumsa. The vacation episodes were shot in Batumi.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087650/
  2. ↑ Ф. Раззаков. Гибель советского кино: Тайны закулисной войны, 1973-1991. Изд-во "ЭКСМО", 2008. Стр. 688.
  3. ↑ http://www.vsp.ru/social/2011/07/22/514042
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