Not such a long time ago There Were living a simple Lady (Zila-bila odna baba)

A Film Co. production. (Worldwide sales: Film Co., Moscow.) Produced by Andrey Smirnov, Elena Smirnova. Directed, put together by Andrey Smirnov.With: Darya Yekamasova, Vlad Abashin, Maxim Averin, Aleksey Serebryakov, Aleksey Shevshenkov, Roman Madynav, Vsevolod Shilovsky.Getting abandoned pointing for thirty years, exasperated by Soviet censorship, vet Russian helmer Andrey Smirnov returns with "Not such a long time ago There Were living a simple Lady," an ambitious, 156-minute epic replay in the Russian Revolution as seen using the googly eyes from the peasant who comprises in survival capabilities what she lacks in brainpower. If fellow returnee Alexi German's "Krustalyov, My Vehicle!" (1998) seeping finished 12 years' cost of passionate film ideas, "Once" teems with thirty years of misanthropic, near-apocalyptic bitterness. Strikingly pictorial, fest-friendly but mean-spirited auteur curio will not really find distribution outdoors Eastern Europe. Smirnov's saga spans time of 1909-23 in Tambov, a person's heart in the bloody peasant revolt of 1920-21 against collectivization. It signifies a period of time as superstitious, venal and brutal as were the Dark Age range in Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev," that "Once" will most likely be unflatteringly in contrast. Smirnov's heroine, Varvara (Darya Yakamasova), suffers through greater than her share of beatings, rapes and assorted indignities consequently of relatives (she's whipped ferociously by her father-in-law each time a equine under her care falls sick), husbands (four, finally count), marauding soldiers and finished others. Pic is split up into two parts, the initial section research in limited awareness that juxtaposes Varvara's uncomprehending, slack-jawed stare while using bigger historic forces playing out round her. Inside the second part, that tension forget about fuels the narrative as she begins to activate, as being a childless Mother Courage carving out her corner of exploitation within the political morass of publish-revolutionary Russia. Because the Bolsheviks are clearly cast as archvillains, their impossible, starvation-inducing grain levies and chapel desecrations driving the peasants to revolt, Smirnov makes little distinction involving the natural bestiality in the peasant class as well as the ideological cruelty in the revolution, as rapaciousness, superstition, envy and sadism overtake the Russian psyche. Smirnov then concocts a lot of spiritual proportions to get rid of the Bolsheviks in the tumultuous wave of historic revisionism more radical than anything Stalin ever imagined of. Besides the compositional mastery apparent throughout, it's very hard to reconcile the luminous fragility in the youthful girl in Smirnov's "Angel" (1967), the war-forged camaraderie within the "Belarus Station" (1973) or perhaps the lovers' rueful nostalgia within the "Fall" (1974) using this ferocious litany decrying man's inhumanity to guy.Camera (color, widescreen), Nikolay Ivasiv, Yuriy Shaygardanov editor, Alla Urazbaeva music supervisor, Olga Yukecheva production designer, Vladimir Gudilin costume designer, Lydmila Gainceva appear (Dolby SRD), Andrey Hudyakov casting, Tatyana Talkova second unit director, Irina Tretyakova. Examined at Montreal World Film Festival (competing), August. 26, 2011. Running time: 156 MIN. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com