Has stylish visuals and a provocative, imaginative screenplay, but occasionally drags and feels convoluted with too many irritatingly awkward moments that lack an emotional core.
Perestroika (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:12
Fresh:6
Rotten:6
Average Rating:5.7/10
Synopsis:
Moscow. 1992. Astrophysicist Sasha Greenberg, (Sam Robards,) returns after emigrating to the US 17 years earlier. Formerly branded a traitor by the government, he is now seen as a hero. The period...
Moscow. 1992. Astrophysicist Sasha Greenberg, (Sam Robards,) returns after emigrating to the US 17 years earlier. Formerly branded a traitor by the government, he is now seen as a hero. The period of “Perestroika” (restructuring) has turned everything upside down. Old friends who had no choice but to denounce him now welcome him with open arms. Painful memories of anti Semitism return to haunt him. A former colleague and lover introduces him to a fiery young girl who may be his daughter. The entire society is in upheaval. Vodka is rationed. Old people can barely feed themselves. Films of polluted seas, rivers on fire, and dying forests, are seeing the light of day for the first time. People are saying things in public that formerly would have sent them to prison. Many expect Civil War. At the same time a new breed of entrepreneurs are born. In the midst of all this turmoil Sasha is expected to deliver a theory that makes sense of our universe. His wily but supportive mentor, Gross, (F. Murray Abraham) counsels Sasha to continue along his path, to ride out his personal and professional problems.
Perestroika is the latest narrative feature from storied writer/director Slava Tsukerman, the director of the cult classic “Liquid Sky,” and the critically acclaimed documentary, Stalin’s Wife. Perestroika is a fictional look at a period that addresses much that is going on right now. But it is also a semi autobiographical recounting of Mr. Tsukerman’s own return to Russia during Perestroika. In his youth Tsukerman was among the first Jews to be admitted to the Moscow Film School. Almost twenty years before Russia’s “restructuring” he managed to emigrate to Israel, and then the US, where he made a huge splash with Liquid Sky. In writing Perestroika he called on much of his own experience. --© Official Site
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Sam Robards, Oksana Stashenko, Jicky Schnee
Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Sam Robards, Oksana Stashenko, Jicky Schnee, Ally Sheedy
Director: Slava Tsukerman
Director: Slava Tsukerman
Producer: Slava Tsukerman, Nina V. Kerova
Composer: Alexander Zhurbin
Reviews for Perestroika
Perestroika races back and forth between the Soviet past and non-Communist present. The result is highly personal, talky, clunky and somehow engrossing.
Perestroika is a curious combination of documentary and fiction, politics and science, sophisticated structure and incompetent drama.
Too much science-babble obscures the truth of Perestroika. The tragedy of the aftermath would have made a better story unvarnished.
Alternately fascinating and boring, ultimately confusing, yet heartfelt film by a Russian expatriate about returning to the homeland after Gorbachev.
A nuanced and fascinating film about a Russian scientist's journey home to Moscow after living in the United States for 17 years.
Thought-provoking, if not wholly satisfying, "Perestroika" is a deconstructionist filmic stew to be savored without expectation in order to enjoy its laissez-faire reality.
The film, which opened March 20 in Los Angeles, is unwieldy, overstuffed and at times hopelessly clunky, yet it's also touchingly funny, visually arresting and somehow a consistent joy to watch.
Perestroika asks, with a philosophical shrug of the shoulders: Why not try to be optimistic?
On the evidence of his new movie, Slava Tsukerman, who made the 1982 cult movie Liquid Sky, would make a brilliantly entertaining dinner guest.
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