LESSONS OF COURAGE
Lada Akimova
translated by O. Zolotareva
08.20.2004
eng.mosfilm.ru
Foley recording for the new film On Upper Maslovka, directed by the well-known director Konstantin Khoudyakov, is being done now at Mosfilm Tonestudios complex.
Anna Borisovna, a former sculptor, in spite of her ripe old age – she is 95 – possesses a phenomenal optimism and is very fond of life in all its manifestations, which helps to prolong her life. All the other characters are just free-floating compared to her: Petya, who is incapable of going further in life than to head an amateur theatre club; artists, unrecognized talents who make use of any opportunity to snub Anna Borisovna. They find everything annoying about her: her cynical attitude to death on the one hand, her unwillingness to die on the other. And the most important thing – that she always tells the truth. It is strange to them that she thinks she has that right.
Knowing that days are numbered, she gives the people around her a lesson of real courage, moral certainty and emotional balance. In the few minutes when she is dying, Petya manages to rethink his whole life.
"The boy played by Zhenechka Mironov," – says Alisa Freindlikh, "is an absolute match for her, they are people from one planet. The malice of life is that two people that make a perfect match were born at different times. This makes for the main spring and the drama of their relationship."