Vanished Empire (2008) User Reviews

Middle-brow culture, Post-Soviet Style

[plamya-1 · 8/10 · 16 March 2013]

Karen Shakhnazarov's films are all, in a sense, "period pieces." They find a solid place in international film festival culture without ever quite winning the prize. "Vanished Empire" had a particularly personal ring for me, since I began my long-time study in and out of Soviet/Post-Soviet Russia in the period this film depicts (circa 1974), and had an uncomfortably eerie sense of deja-vu throughout the film. Searching for an American parallel, I came up with "American Graffiti," where Richard Dreyfus's character is caught between remaining in his Middle-American hometown or heading off to an Eastern college (as he does) and returning many years later to write about it.

Shakhnazarov's film has a similarly autobiographical feel to it, although his young hero ends embracing, rather than rejecting, the culture from which he emerged: the Russian intelligentsia. The meticulous reproduction of the Soviet 1970's offers a vaguely satiric self- portrait, hinting at the educated class's role in preserving world culture and history while rejecting indoctrination into Soviet politics and values. Therefore, the young hero, Sergey's true love is not, as he believes, the "good girl," Lyuda, who prefers the ACTUAL recording of "Swan Lake" (a covert reference to the ballet's role in service to the state) contained in the black market record jacket of the Rolling Stone latest release to the Western contraband recording that Sergey has paid dearly for, expecting to win her affections. Sergey's instinctual pull towards rebellion keep him from romanic fulfillment, but bring him closer to his true self.

Instead, Sergey comes to love and honor his dying mother, and follows his grandfather's advice by making a pilgrimage to the archaeological site that represented his family's life's work.In the ancient desert sands, Sergey finds the source of his earlier hallucinatory, drug-induced vision.

Emblematic details (cars, records, ancient trinkets) speak to viewers with Shaknazarov's background. Reading them properly, however, requires something of the education Shaknazarov's hero gained in the intervening years between the "coming of age" story and the film's contemporary epilogue.

Is there a story somewhere?

[MikeyB1793 · 6/10 · 5 September 2010]

The story line in this film starts to wear thin after about 30-40 minutes. It takes place in the Soviet Union in the mid-70's and we get an interesting view of life there. There is a black-market, students are bored in the class-room and they listen to rock-and-roll.

Unfortunately the story surrounding this is rather simple – boys are trying to meet girls with the usual results. The on-again off-again relationship between the two main protagonists became strained after the 2nd or 3rd break-up. It just becomes a little repetitive and boring. The acting is good but the story lacks any progression after the first 45 minutes.

The past recaptured, and then lost

[Chris Knipp · 9/10 · 27 July 2009]

The Vanished Empire is a beautiful film about Moscow in 1973 when its hero, Sergei Narbekov, is eighteen. Now, he and his cohorts of those days are fifty-three. Not without significance is the fact that Back to the Future is a big hit at the time. Russian kids are in love with jeans, denim, and bootlegged vinyl of the Stones and, judging by Sergei, college is a place to pick up girls you impress by your skill at wangling outlawed or hard to get stuff, including tickets for shows. Getting drunk and going dancing are also high values. Meanwhile, the USSR is full of itself, even if the kids debate whether it might not be much better elsewhere. The empire is in the ascendant but will soon begin to vanish. The film doesn't push this aspect, but hints at it metaphorically. More often it revels in the details of the period, the boastful propaganda signs, the shiny but rickety Russian cars, young hipsters performing covers of western rock and roll, cluttered apartments, people who read. This is clear-eyed nostalgia. The images are lightly tinted in yellow but razor sharp. The only nostalgia is in how well Shakhnazarov has brought everything back to life. Sergei (played by the impressive newcomer Aleksandr Lyapin) is tall and rangy, modeling his up-to-date fashions with slightly geeky panache. He has a fresh choirboy face, but also an air of cynical cockiness. The fresh face it to attract girls, not signify innocence.

Sergsi's father and grandfather (Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, an Armenian like the director) were archaeologists. His father's missing, his grandfather (who knew Agatha Christie) is amiably tired of life at home, and indulgent toward the boy -- who steals his books and sells them to buy stuff and get drunk with his best mates Stepan (Yegor Baranovsky) and Kostya (Ivan Kupreyenko). It's essential to understand this film to recognize it's about sowing your wild oats. Decades later the grudges of this moment and its misbehavior won't matter one bit. And due to the resilience of youth, they hardly even matter now.

But Sergei's definitely a bad boy, neglecting his studies and, time and again, at key moments in fact, getting drink or stoned and standing up his new girlfriend Lyuda (Lidiya Milyuzina), whose respectable mother he's impressed with is intellectual background. He wants her and loves her but he wants to have fun more. He's unmotivated. When his mother dies of stomach cancer he goes on a trip, a kind of expiation, suggested by his grandfather, to the vast empty site of the ancient City of the Wind, sole remnant of the lost Khorezm civilization his grandfather discovered.

That evocative moment ends the vision of 1973 and there quickly follows a short perspective-establishing coda in the Moscow airport today, where the now much older Sergei, whom we don't see, is recognized and approached by Stopya (Stepan), the friend he rejected in a fight over Ludya. Sergei's a translator now. The grudge is forgotten. All that means nothing now.

There's a parallel, but never at all pushed, of the lost civilization of the East and the lost Soviet empire. The film, handsome to look at, with a vivid look, is superb as to period mise-en-scene, period (and not just of his own youth) being a penchant of Shakhnazarov, whose position as head of Mosfilm has helped him get funding for such productions. The evocations give a sense of the USSR's high point of self-importance but also of how it was stunted. Now everything is gone, changed, and feels "evil," Stopya says in the airport. Shakhnazarov doesn't have to spell out the differences; the contrast is beautifully sketched in.

In retrospect there's a feeling conveyed that the reason Sergei wasn't a good boy is that he saw through the Soviet dream. The Vanished Empire, with its subtly overlapping sense of parallels between lost youth, far off civilization, and crumbled USSR, succeeds in both making eighteen and 1973 clear and vivid and showing that they're gone forever -- that in reliving them for us Sergei is an archaeologist, just like his father and grandfather, after all.

On the inception of Western culture in Russian 70's

[markedasread · 10/10 · 19 March 2009]

Living in a country where Russian cinema is something foreign, not only in terms of language but also because the import of movies from all of Eastern Europe is quite poor, let me just begin by saying that this movie is a true gem discovered.

Advertised by some as a common love story, "The Vanished Empire" should be seen as much more. While love, or perhaps rather infantile teenage crushes is present throughout, director Karen Shakhnazarov tells the tale of a Russia torn between conservative party-political-values and new western influences featuring the tunes of Shocking Blue, Deep Purple and jeans that begs to deviate from otherwise more traditional clothing. All this started to penetrate a crowd of youths in the early 70's, it just, well, seemingly was a bit more difficult for protagonist Sergei with pals Kostya and Stepan than the contemporary American teen.

Both script, directing and cinematography holds a great deal of quality. Try to catch this! Don't let Timur Bekmambetov's "Night Watch" be the only Russian movie you've seen for the last four years - and the next four to come...

Ochen Harasho! (That's 'Very Good!' in Russian)

[yj270 · 10/10 · 15 May 2010]

This is the kind of film which captures the spirit of the age, which gives us an excellent cast playing characters who are all too real, in their world, over 35 years ago.

Everything that one could have heard about Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union can be found here. Compared to today, it was an era where life was simpler, yet offered far less opportunities than the West.

Despite the differences, by the end of this film, it is very easy to relate to the characters, especially Sergei Narbakov, the protagonist, and his friend, Stepan Molodtsov. Our humanity is a shared experience.

The outstanding performance by the Armenian actor, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, must not be overlooked, either. Alternating between old wisdom and very dry humor, he stands out as Sergei's grandfather.

I have already recommended this film to friends who share with me an equal curiosity about the USSR, an acronym now consigned to history books.

Engrossing, entertaining

[jsmith1480 · 10/10 · 16 July 2009]

We see few Russian films here in the U.S. and our familiarity with modern day Russian life is limited. Here we get a view of life in the Brezhnev 1970s. "Vanished Empire" reassures us that the Russians are just like everybody else, save for social conditioning and a scarcity of consumer goods. It's convincing characters are warm, animated and full of very familiar foibles. But it is charming how readily family and friends "do" for each other there,enthusiastically.

Yet this is a society so parched for Western-style consumer goods that a used Japanese radio can get a buddy out of police custody, a nice jacket plus gas money can induce a cab driver to take someone to the hinterlands and back.

Sergey, the focal character, is well and charmingly rendered by young Aleksandr Lyapin. Like a lot of 18 year old college boys he is impulsive and easily suggestible. His romance with girlfriend Lyuda is in full bloom but a call from his comrades can make him forget his commitments to the lady. More than once Sergey shows that loyalty to his buddies trumps faithfulness to his lover.

Sergey's inattention to those who love him and his hijinks in school are forgiven, up to a point, because of his youth and charm. But the carefree life and luck of a teenager cannot last. Life becomes serious and the due bill for self-centered presumptions is, inevitably, presented.

The women characters in this film are long suffering. Though not ill-treated physically, they are never valued above male comradeship. Their needs are not thought of, or not taken seriously. Lyuda's treatment by Sergey reminded me of the comment of an American exchange student who had boyfriends in the Soviet 1970s. Asked if she ever considered marrying any of them, she said "No." She said that, in Russia, "a woman might be loved but she will never be respected." Jim Smith

Karen Shakhnazarov tells a simple yet effective tale of a giant empire which vanished much too soon.

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 1 October 2009]

Those who have been films by Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov will surely waste no time in recognizing certain similarities which exist in "Ischeznuvshaya Imperiya" and one of his old films "Kuryer" which was made in 1987.Both these films gives viewers outside of Russia a very basic yet subtle idea of what it takes to be a youngster in mighty Russia.Although music and young people can be found in both these films,it should be noted that these films must be analyzed using absolutely different ideological yardsticks.A word for those who have not seen old films by Karen Shakhnazarov.They should be requested to have an attentive look at them at the earliest in order to understand how Karen Shakhnazarov has nicely blended his love for music and Russian youth in most of his films.This is something which has given a distinct edge of lightness to the image of Russian cinema which has earned the dubious notoriety of following a recognizable pattern of serious,occult themes."The Vanished Empire" is a curious title which might induce funny ideas in inattentive viewers' heads but this film is only mildly critical of Russian state.The highlight of this film is its depiction of joys of friendship in true Russian style.If surprise end is any indication of a film's ingenuity then "The Vanished Empire" would surely win many a heart by being a truly heroic film showing the frustrations of hapless Russian youth.Film critic Lalit Rao interviewed MOSFILM studio CEO and Russian director Karen Shakhnazarov during a screening of this film at 13th International Film Festival of Kerala 2008 (IFFK) which organized a retrospective of his films.

exorcism

[RResende · 2 April 2009]

I am Portuguese so, despite being born in the 80', i know a few things about a country trying to overcome its own memory. For those who don't know, Portugal was the late perpetrator in Europe of a fascist concept of "empire", a retro idea that stuck cultural life and true evolution for decades in some countries. It finished for us in the mid 70', but dealing with such a radical change of collective definition is something that drags to these days, watered by an upgrade in the Portuguese general living conditions, but still there.

Now i think the Soviet experiment was probably more radical and fundamentalist to its populations than the Latin European fascisms. And it lasted longer. So, dealing with the radical shift towards a forced "western democracy" approach is probably a painful process for the ex soviet territories, mostly the russians. That's the frame where i place this specific picture. I watched it as an exorcism of past phantoms, but also a blinking melancholic eye to those days.

The facts in the story, which is casual (it is here as a 'typical' repetitive case, in those days) all speak against what was happening in that regime in that context, but yet it avoids moralizing. No one is judged (unlike, for example, in "The lives of the others") and no one is innocent. It's a kind of approach that assumes that we must feel what was going on regardless of the upper political or power contexts that forged what we see. I accept that vision, i enjoyed it. The cinematic options here were fully coherent to what we saw, and from time to time i saw Tarkovsky here, who has much to do with how cinema bends memory. Nice to remember a social context, a certain youth i never got to know, and a certain kind of cinema that is sweet and sometimes (not this case) deep and life-altering.

My opinion: 3/5

FantasPorto

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

portrait of a period

[Kirpianuscus · 21 June 2016]

like many Russian films, Vanished Empire could be understand especially by the public from the East. for the small detail, for the life style , for the relations between characters, for a special form of poetry. in same measure, it is an universal story of a teenager. and the only ingredient who does difference by many other films about same theme is the atmosphere of Brezhnev era. the mixture of nostalgia and emotions, the adventures of a teenager and his desires, fragments of the universe of his family members, the way to discover his roots, the love story who seems be a misunderstood, the final dialogue and the beautiful performance of Aleksandr Lyapin - who not represents a surprise - are tools for define a time more than a biography. nothing new. only the flavor of a period . honest presented, realistic reproduced at the level of an age of searches. humor and crisis of an empire. and few scenes who are potential of gem.