I'm in a "quest", getting to know Russian Culture and as Cinema is an important part of every nation Culture. I've heard of Father Sergii Movie. The movie is following a plot by a book witten by Leo Tolstoy who is considered as one of the most influential Russian and Worldly poetrists of the 19th century 'till now.
Original book story was written Leo Tolstoy in 1890. The screening of the movie is just few years before, beginning of the Russian Civil war in 1923 and thus it is an unique piece of cinema to see. The movie still reflects the all Tsarist (Monarchic Spirit) of Russia before the Communist total take over the Monarchic Power in 1923. Besides that the movie is one of the first Russian movies ever produced.
As watching it, I came to the conclusion the movie is of a great quality.
It is evident the Russian Empire was not so undeveloped and future-less as communist Bolshevik's painted it with the many proceeding years of communist propaganda after they did the terrible sin of killing the Russian Tsar with all his family (The Russian Royal Family) in y. 1918. The Tsar was brutally killed with his wife his family and the family doctor and few servants, being shot by Bolsheviks (Communist Guerillas) – with no trial and respect.
Later Tsar Nicolas II and all the Royal Family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox.
Watching the movie one should take in consideration, Leo Tolstoy himself was preaching anti-Orthodoxy (Anti Orthodox Christian believ) and thus his books – (including the one used as a storyline for the movie) is preaching a bit of Anarchistic ideas. His idea about religion was close to certain modern "Protestants" who hold beliefs rejecting Jesus Christ's divine nature. In Church language Tolstoy was a type of Arian in the 19th century.
Here I include the movie in the 6 parts as provided by youtube. Anyone who held serious interest into World Cinema development and more specificly into Russian Cinema history will surely enjoy.
Yakov Protazanov's FATHER SERGIUS (1917) part 1 of 6
Yakov Protazanov's FATHER SERGIUS (1917) part 2 of 6
Yakov Protazanov's FATHER SERGIUS (1917) part 3 of 6
Yakov Protazanov's FATHER SERGIUS (1917) part 4 of 6
Yakov Protazanov's FATHER SERGIUS (1917) part 5 of 6
Yakov Protazanov's FATHER SERGIUS (1917) part 6 of 6
Otec Sergij / Father Sergius movie storyline
The story begins with the childhood and exceptional and accomplished youth of Prince Stepan Kasatsky. The young man is destined for great things.
He discovers on the eve of his wedding that his fiancée Countess Mary Korotkova has had an affair with his beloved Tsar Nicholas I.
The blow to his pride is massive, and he retreats to the arms of Russian Orthodoxy and becomes a monk.
Many years of humility and doubt follow. He is ordered to become a hermit.
Despite his being removed from the world, he is still remembered for having so remarkably transformed his life.
One winter night, a group of merry-makers decide to visit him, and one of them, a divorced woman named Makovkina, spends the night in his cell, with the intention to seduce him.
Father Sergius discovers he is still weak and in order to protect himself, cuts off his own finger. Makovkina is stunned by this act, and leaves the next morning, having vowed to change her life.
A year later she has joined a convent. Father Sergius' reputation for holiness grows. He becomes known as a healer, and pilgrims come from far and wide.
Yet Father Sergius is profoundly aware of his inability to attain a true faith.
He is still tortured by boredom, pride, and lust.
He fails a new test, when the young daughter of a merchant successfully beds him. The morning after, he leaves the monastery and seeks out his cousin Pashenka (Praskovya Mikhaylovna), whom he, with a group of other boys, had tormented many years ago.
He finds her, now in all the conventional senses a failure in life, yet imbued with a sense of service towards her family. His path is now clearer. He begins to wander, until eight months later he is arrested. He is sent to Siberia, where he now works as the hired man of a well-to-do peasant.
Just few closing impressions to share about – The movie soundtrack which is constituting only of piano. Though the soundtrack is exceptionally simple it is totally amazingly beatiful! The actor play of father Sergius is also very real something we rarely see in modern cinema. One thing I've noticed of the movie is the ending part, which pretty much in the "spirit of Russian" cinema which follows for many years even to this day is ending with a feeling of "incomplete" (open) ending.
I'm in Sofia for a couple of days being a guest to a friend (thx Nomen), after my stay for a week in Bodesće (a little village nearby Bled located in Slovenia).
Yesterday on my way to sleep I wanted to see a movie and asked Nomen to recommend me a movie. His recommendation was a German-Australian movie from 2004 called The Edukators – The Fat years are Over. I had absolutely no idea what it will be like so I didn't expected much but it seems the movie plot took my attention.
The movie plot revolves around 3 avarage German persons who live in Berlin. The three youngsters has just passed the 20s, Peter and Daniel (two close friends who hold some serious anti-capitalist views and does organize house break-ups without stealing.) Peter and Daniel's rich villas break-ups aim is idealistic, they don't steal but just change the order of furniture and leave messages to make rich people aware that money doesn't make them invincible…
Jule a girlfriend of Peter, becomes friend with Daniel and they fall in love, while Peter is away for a vacation. During Peters sojourn abroad Daniel tells Jule the secret (Peter and Daniel) are the Edukators whose break-ins has just recently become known via the local Berlin newspapers. The Edukators group leave messages to every of the "victim" homes saying – "die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" – "The fat years are over", a sentence well known from the Holy Bible's story of Joseph in Egypt.
Jule works as a waitress in a luxurious restaurant but her payment is only good to cover her very basic needs as well as pay her debt (as she is already indebted as many youngsters in Germany).
Jule is more indebted compared to many of the young germans, since by accident she hit a rich businessman's car which costs 100 000 eur. Since more than a year she is working for paying the monthly bills to cover richman's car and she succeeded to pay only €55000 …
The Jule's "injustice" is just a part of the many injustices that are in society, but as the youngsters hold anarchistic and anti democratic views, this whole Mercedes crash accelerates as Jule and Daniel break up in the Luxurious Villa of the rich man whose car Jule is still paying.
Just like the other break ups Jule and Daniel change completely the order of the furniture and leave the threatening message die fetten Jahre sind vorbei , this time however they do even more as they decide to drop the sofa in the pool. These time Daniel and Jule's planning is more like an venture than just a well planned Edukators break-in. Suddenly the watchdogs in the yard start barking and the two youngesters has to move quickly to prevent being taken by the police patrol.
On the next day Peter is back from his vacation and Jule realizes her mobile phone is missing (probably fallen in the pool or somewhere in the richman's mansion)… On the next night Jule and Daniel, enter the house again in hope to find and cover-up the tracks they left last night and hopefully find, Jule's missing mobile.
They don't know however the richman would arrive his villa to stay for the night. As he enter his house, the businessman encounters Jule and immediately recognizes her.
Daniel being in the other floor comes down and hits the richman from behind and he enters unconscioness. As the two are panicked they call Peter and tell him about "the villa accident". Daniel arrives immediately and the three "revolutionaries" decide to take the wealthy man who as a hostage bringing him in Jule's uncle mountain hut.
The 3 anti-current system democrats and the representative of the wealthy class has to spend few weeks together in a small house each one exposing his stand point and philosophy. Little by little the 4 people become friends and a dramma between Daniel and Peter emerges as Jule is now in love with Daniel and Peter finds out …
Hardenberg (the 3 youngesters hostage) happens to be an ex-leader of a Socialist German Student Union some 35 years go … and tells a story how he and his union members hostiged a VIP german person in their youth days and how funny is that he is in the same situation like the person they hostiged so long time ago…
The movie is interesting as it really shows the sad reality and the falling democratic system which we have established and follow. It exposes the injustice of the system but it doesn't really offer a solution to the society and economic problems and injustices.
Yesteday with Baky (my dear Orthodox Coptic Christian friend) and Kliment (a good friend from the old rock'n'roll years), we went to the Dobrich Cinema (sadly just one cinema for the city is available). The cinema in Dobrich is called Cinema Club Icarus (Ikar). For all foreigners who wants to enjoy some movie, the Dobrich Cinema does offer a plenty of English speaking movies (with Bulgarian subtitles).
Pitily the Dobrich Cinema website http://www.kinoikar.com/bg/info/2 is not existing in English, though anyone wanting to check the current projected movies in the cinema can use the movie trailers and the movie pictures to get the necessery info.
Anyways I haven't been to a cinema for some almost two months, so going for a movie was really relaxing enjoyable experience. Besides that, we were lucky to see a movie which fitted quite well to my movie genre preferences -
Midnight in Paris
. Midnight in Paris is a Romantic Comedy for intellectuals and people who have a glipmse on art. Its a Bohemian movie so to say and I believe it wouldn't hold a big interest for the avarage man who doesn't keep interest in Arts, History or Philosophy.
The movie plot revives around a young engaged American couple who went to Paris for a business trip, just to find out there whole life is gonna be changed by this.
The main actor Gil a just grown man is writting a Novel book, trying to make a shift of his profession from being a movie directory to a novel publicist. Gil (Owen Wilson) is an odd Bohemian kind of man, who quickly fells in love with Paris rich culture architecture and old fame.
Next to that Gil is a dreamer who (just like me dreams about the old glorious times), when people were more respectable better moral and more idealistic than in the current age. After one night of heavy wine drinking, Gil's fiancee wents for some dancing and leaves him on his own. Gil makes a round in Paris and losts himself and decides to stay for a while in front of sold old Roman Catholic Cathedral, a mysterious very old car crosses by the street and suddenly some "party" gang asks Gil to join. He has no idea where he is going and suddeny finds himself in the epoch of the world famous 1920 of great book publicists like the Fidgeralds family.
Night by night Gil is being transferred to a different epoch back in time to meet a world famous artists and authors, people like Ernest Hemingway, Picaso, Salvador Dali etc. etc.
The movie shows many personages of odd world famous people with some of their strangeties known by the current age. It appears all of them are dreaming for all and the same thing, to live in a earlier age to live in the Golden Age of Arts and Poetry
The movie is real fun in Gil's personage I've seen a lot of "me", also I've seen a lot of me in many of the other famous people as of course presented in the movie. I hardly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to take a break, have a good mindful laugh time.
Here is Midnight in Paris movie trailer as well to get an idea what to expect:
Yesterday I watched Star Trek (2009) , the movie was recommended to me by a friend as a worthy one to be seen even for people who are not fans of Sci-Fi
I'm a fan of sci-fi but lately I'm not that keen as in the short past. So I thought let's see if this movie is worthy from the perspective of an ex-sci-fi maniac
I should also say that I was a bit skeptical in the beginning as I've never been a big fan ot Star Trek , neither too much impressed by Star Wars
To sum it up the movie is a nice enjoyable one to take up 2 hours on watching good visual effects and human stories. There is an evil guy like with most sci-fi movies. Which prankly is a funny one
The general movie plot is not much, neither its easy to grasp some of the moments of the movie, but this should be part of the cyberpunk part of it I guess.
Generally I enjoyed the movie and I would recommend it to my dear readers to have a look if they're bored and they want to have 2 hrs of enjoyment
I'm watching iGenius – How Steve Jobs changed the World movie. I heard about a movie from Alex a friend of mine who said this movie sheds some light on history of Apple Computers Inc, Macintosh and the great significance of Steve Jobs work as a manager and visionary to change the world for good.
The world has suddenly been astonished by Steve Jobs sudden death so surely the interest about him is tremendously up.
I do respect Jobs as under his leading the computer industry has received some innovations, still I don't agree with many of the movie aspects which turn Apple and the consequent company products IPhone, Ipad, Ipod etc. into a mega hype products.
I'm being honest to myself and I should say many of the innovations they did are not something too much, but just a product which popularized or minituarized some older invented technology.
The product quality of Apple in the past is a fact so one cannot argue with this however with recent years I wouldn't say the company quality is so much supreme as presented in the movie.
What I don't understand why is Jobs receiving so much praise and recognition but rarely somebody could show his bad sides as well. We've been again manipulatively mislead that he is a mega genius or like an angel on earth. However the achievements of Apple and the mass production and involvement of the field of marketing which lies basicly and makes profits based on great deceptions of Jobs doesn't make Jobs to a super hero.
As an enterpreneur and businessman his achievements are unquestionable but for many years now the reality of business is sad and a honest man could rarely be found to be dealing with business.
Usually the people who like dirt, lies and fame are into business. Most of the times these are people who are ready to kill in the name of Public Recognition and Success.
Jobs has been said to be a Buddhist according to what I've red in Wikipedia. If that is true its rather strange to me on fruits his buddhist faith produced.
I don't believe that any rational man who observes nowdays technology and how it is used doesn't see the great harm technology did us and is continuously pushing us down.
Buddhist teachings in my view teach on helping the neighbor educating and giving up things for free. Apple products however are not giving anything for free, yes some of them do education.
Therefore in my view the philosophy of apple and its application is not really fitting up to helping the neigbor as they don't come free of charge like the free software does.
Apple products actually enslaved their users, all of apple products are nowdays connected to Apple's Inc.
Mega Corporation IStore or they report somehow to apple during updates or purchases more or less about users likings or behaviours.
This obviously doesn't respect users freedom and makes Apple an example of a company that doesn't respect completely the user natural right of freedom and privacy.
To sum it up iGenius – Or How Steve Jobs changed the World is a highly manipulative movie just like most of the movies or books dedicated to super heroes are. Steve Jobs was lucky to get this recognition and status in life, however this doesn't make him too much different from all of us. He just used to be in the right time in the right place and achieved what he did explicitly by God's mercy.
As a known fact Jobs was an Orphan and as we can see from many life examples God helps and has helped many orphans to have a good lives eventually.
Also I'm quite curious if Steve Jobs success was just a fruit of his good fortune or there were just too many circles of people behind him (Jewish or Masonry) possessing big fortunes who found it practical to sponsor his (??) products and ideas seeing a lot of potential to keep the world under siege through technology.
Nomatter what the complete true behind Jobs and his achievements are, he is still an inspirational person and an "icon" in the field of IT. Even I'm a bit Jealous on his overall achievements.
Anyways for people who want to loose some approximately 42:00 minutes on a hype Jobs praise movie and see some of apple's products and pictures of Jobs and Apple / Macintosh products the movie is a good choice
As I a person who values highly love between man and woman and believes in true love between man and woman under God's providence I really enjoyed The Notebook and I recommend it to everyone out there looking for true love.
The movie gives a good example that one can experience great love. This is a fresh breath for me as I'm surrounded by dozens of people who does concentrate too much about the fleshly pleasure and forget that the essence of love is not in the flesh but in the love between man and woman's spirit and soul. The Notebook is a record of one true love story between a man and wife who went through love, hate long time separation, regret broken heart, loss of path in life, fading love and then after a long time of being away of each other burning love again.
It tells the story of a man and wife who loved so much that they get old together a story of true dedication and lasting love. Watch the movie you will certainly not regret it.
Sjecas li se dolly is a piece of classic in the well known Kosturica genre, the movie is from the distant 1981. The movie action takes place in communistic Yugoslavia. It clearly contains anti-communistic nuances. I'm really amazed that this movie see the light of the day in the early '90s while still communism had strong influence on information media in Yugoslavia.
As I've lived until the age of 7 in communism and post-communism (and experienced myself communism), the movie was especially interesting to see. In the family in the movie I can see many things I've seen and suffered many of the anti-human communistic bull-shit in my own family in my boy years.
Communism has cripppled us the Bulgarians as a nation and destroyed any society which it was in (clearly observable in all post-communistic countries).
Interesting thing to notice among the communistic Marxist ideas in the plot is the growing influence of the Western World (seen in the anti social behavior of the actors),the enthusiasm to look for occult of the main actor the teenager boy – (Dino), the desire to look follow Italian western culture etc.
The movie also keeps the mark of the negativism and crazyness which is so distinct about all Kosturica movies I've seen. Anyways from an art point of view the movie is a real master piece.
The movie plot takes place in the so conflict area of Sarajevo, a place predominated by Muslims. What is shocking about the movie considering its time of make, is the explicit erotic and sexually related scenes. The censorship in communistic times was quite severe so it's amazing, how this anti-communistic movie containing society unacceptable scenes ever came to existence. Do you remember Dolly Bell? is a drama movie, presenting a sad reality, we still partially continue to live in the Balkans. Though 20 years has passed since the fall of communism pitily not much has changed here…
Near the movie end there are some religious scenes as well obviously attempting to fill in the material emptiness of communism with something spiritual. The religious scene,is a muslim local tradition of a funeral preparations.
The relation between the movie and Islam is understandable as Kosturica had some Bosnian Muslim roots from the line of his father. This kind of muslim influence is also observable on the other Kosturica movies as well.
Nowdays since 2005, Kosturica is officially Orthodox Christian baptized in Savina Monastery which makes me happy as myself am Orthodox Christian
Black Cat, White Cat is truly an awesome movie from Emil Kostutirca it really presents the wildness and ridiculousness of being a citizen of the farest places of Eastern Europe the Balkans. The movie is a story of a Gipsy hamlet, located nearby the Danube. The movie is a drama, commedy, action and even more If you’re looking for some movie to cheer up in about 2 hours of watching oddities and unexpected turn outs this is surely the movie for you.
The movie is one of the best movies ever made by a Slavonic origin film director. My only objection to the movie, is towards the part presenting one Bulgarian who is being presented as a hardcore swindler and later on brutally killed and mocked.
This part is a bit too much insulting towards our Bulgarian nation and it also shows the decade hostility between our bordered nations …
I’ll skip the explanations on the movie plot and give you a small crazy scene to give you an idea on what to expect from the movie:
Just completed Arizona Dream by the famous Serbian director Emil Kosturica. The movie is starring Johny Depp an movie actor I’m not too big fan of.
The movie’s plot is too cracky. It all starts and ends with scenes of some Eskimos, where it progresses and depicts later on an ordinary life of an american fisher. As movie progresses parts of the life of a successful car sells man comes in place. Axel (Johny Depp) is the main actor. The movie revolves around the sexist element.
Some of the scenes and movie delopment looks quite unexpected. Axel starts living in a place with two beautiful woman (a mother in law and a daguther in law). The mother in law is famous for her passion to attract and sleep with new young man. Axel fells in love and together they follow a dream of building an airplane which is supposed to be used later on as a mean to kill themselves together and according to Eskimos belief bind together their souls for eternity. The spiritual concepts of the movie are completely messed up and clearly the movie contains references to multitude of anti-christian ideas. The movie is generally a bit depressing as the atmosphere one can feel is a jail like. Initially Axel fells in love with the mother in law Ellaine, later on near the movie denouement, he losts his passion for Ellain which is a bit older for his age and fells in love with Grace (which is a way younger and even more attractive).
Grace has a severe problems with feeling of unvalueness and suffers with chronic depression and thus things constantly to kill her self.
Near the end of the movie Axel explains himself in love with Grace (which seems to also be in love with him). However the ending scenes are too sad as Grace decides finally to kill herself and commits suicide with a gun …
Honestly I expected a way more from the movie and I wouldn’t recommend it as a piece of classics or a movie with some significant value. The rest of the movies directed by Emil Kosturica seems to be a far more superior and positive than this one. If you want to save yourself from some insanity just stay away from this cranky movie!
Kolya is the first Czech movie, I see. The movie is really good and I would classify it as a really art movie. It also bears the sad melancholic atmosphere that we hold on the Balkans. The movie might be a hard to grasp one for Western people but would definitely be easily understand by someone who lived in the realms of the USSR. The movie is also a movie that presents realities of the decaying communism, the times before the year of the fall the Berlin Wall (1989). What was really worthy and edifying for myself was the sad realities of a falling Union (a false idealistic empire built for more than half a century).
The movie starts with the main actor Louka, a middle-aged Czech man dedicated to music (a cellist funeral crematorium orchestra player and a self-employed cello instructor). Louka has one major muse which helps him follow his music career, the pursuit of new love and sexual relations with woman. As the situation with falling-communism is harsh and the economic in the Soviet Union is in downturn this kind of trend is even more seriously felt among people who are in art like Louka. Most of the movie is happening in Golden Prague (One of the most beautiful cities in the world IMHO).
Louka is working a couple of part time jobs next to his music career in the orchestra in order to be able to pay his daily life and bills, one of his other ways to get extra cash is the gravestone inscriptions.
Even though Louka is trying hard to earn money to pay back his loans and get a normal living, he is unsuccessful in getting enough money to make a decent living. Suddenly he gets into huge debts which he is not able to pay with his earned money. As Louka is single he is offered by one of his debtors to earn money by a small cheat (a false marriage) with a Russian woman who needs Czech citizenship in order to be able to later travel freely to the western part of Europe. He is offered 30 000 of Czech crons which for that time is a really solid money, which will allow him to pay back his loans and even get a small car Trabant !
Even though Louka tries his best to resist the temptation to do the criminal marriage at certain point the offered money convince him to accept the offering and he merries the young Russian fictiously. As marriages of this type are quite common in Czech in this days of communism decay, he lives with the promise by the Russian woman family that they will get divorced after 6 months time.
Louka gets married and gets his money, but just a 2 weeks later the Russian young lady emigrates in Germany to her German lover and leaves her young Russian boy Kolya behind under the care of her old mother. The old mother being unable to accept the sudden escape of her young Russian daughter, gets insane and enters into a mental hospital. Since Kolya (who speaks only Russian and has not even basic knowledge of Czech) does not a family to be placed in he is being brought to the apartment of his (father in law) Louka.
Louka enters into an unexpected hardships, where the policy could chase him for the illeagal fictious marriage and even worser with a foreign Russian child. He has never before had any experience with children, so initially he faces the hell of taking care for a child. To make things even worser the babushka (mentally unstable grandmother) of Kolya passes away after a heart attack in the Mental hospital. Now Louka is the only “relative” who according to Czech law has to take care for the 5 year old kid Kolya ! The child suffers from suspected meningitis and has to be placed on a course of carefully monitored antibiotics. Louka is threatened with imprisonment for his suspect marriage …
The movie is a serious drama but is a really touching one as it presents the power of love and how love can change human lives as Louka’s gradual love for Kolya changes him for good. Kolya is a wonderful piece of art movie and a real achievement for Czech cinema. Since it’s the first Czech movie I see I want to see a lot of more. In the mean time just watch the movie as it’s a wonderful piece of all-time movie classic.
Bio: I am a Free Software enthusiast, hobbyist and a unix geek. Presently my competences are into the field of System administration.
I am also a devoted Orthodox Christian. I have deep interests into
religion in general and in Christianity in particular.
I am a big fan of all kind of Unix like systems like: GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, DOS and other various obscure computing. I'm also interested into philosophy and business administration.
My hobbies include playing old arcade games, trips to a new places,
preferably nature filled places, Mountain, Waterfalls, Woods etc.
In my free time I also like watching movies: Mostly spiritual movies, or movies with a deeper meaning.Currently I am a student in Arnhem Business School in the stream of HRQM (Human Resources and Quality Management).
Herein my blog you'll find mostly stuff about my unix/linux adventures, personal life, thoughts on life, religion, philosophy and art.
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