My Friend Ivan Lapshin
Encyclopedia
My Friend Ivan Lapshin is a 1984 Soviet criminal drama film
directed by Aleksei German and produced by Lenfilm
. Based on a novel by Yuri German
adapted by Eduard Volodarsky. Music composed by Arkadi Gagulashvili, sound by Nikolai Astakhov. Cinematography by Valeri Fedosov, film editing by Leda Semyonova. Narrated by Valeri Kuzin. Runtime - 100 min.
Set in 1935 in the fictional provincial town of Unchansk, the film is presented as the recollections of a man who at the time was a nine-year-old boy living with his father in a communal flat shared with criminal police investigator Ivan Lapshin and a number of other characters. There are several plot strands: a provincial troupe of actors arrive and put on a play without much success; a friend of Lapshin's, the journalist Khanin, shows up, depressed after his wife's death; and Lapshin investigates the Solovyov gang of criminals. Lapshin falls in love with the actress Natasha Adashova, but she is in love with Khanin, who loves someone else. It is "a film about people 'building socialism' on a bleak frozen plain, their town's one street a long straggle of low wooden buildings beneath a huge white sky, leading from the elegant stucco square by the river's quayside out into wilderness":
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Aleksei German and produced by Lenfilm
Lenfilm
Kinostudiya "Lenfilm" is a production unit of the Russian film industry, with its own film studio, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, formerly Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R. Today OAO "Kinostudiya Lenfilm" is a corporation with its stakes shared between private owners, and several private film studios,...
. Based on a novel by Yuri German
Yuri German
Yuri Pavlovich German was a Soviet Russian writer, playwright, screenwriter, and journalist.- Life :German was born in Riga and accompanied his father, an artillery officer, during the Civil War. He graduated from high school in Kursk and studied at the Technical School of Performing Arts in...
adapted by Eduard Volodarsky. Music composed by Arkadi Gagulashvili, sound by Nikolai Astakhov. Cinematography by Valeri Fedosov, film editing by Leda Semyonova. Narrated by Valeri Kuzin. Runtime - 100 min.
Set in 1935 in the fictional provincial town of Unchansk, the film is presented as the recollections of a man who at the time was a nine-year-old boy living with his father in a communal flat shared with criminal police investigator Ivan Lapshin and a number of other characters. There are several plot strands: a provincial troupe of actors arrive and put on a play without much success; a friend of Lapshin's, the journalist Khanin, shows up, depressed after his wife's death; and Lapshin investigates the Solovyov gang of criminals. Lapshin falls in love with the actress Natasha Adashova, but she is in love with Khanin, who loves someone else. It is "a film about people 'building socialism' on a bleak frozen plain, their town's one street a long straggle of low wooden buildings beneath a huge white sky, leading from the elegant stucco square by the river's quayside out into wilderness":
These are people whose faith in the future remains intact, but whose betrayal is imminent. German has said that his main aim was to convey a sense of the period, to depict as faithfully as possible the material conditions and human preoccupations of Soviet Russia on the eve of the Great Purge. It is for this world, for these people that the narrator struggles to declare his love—unconditional, knowing how flawed that world was, and how tainted the future would be. German compared the film to the work of Chekhov, and one can see in it a similar tenderness for the suffering and absurdity of its characters.
Cast
- Andrei Boltnev as Ivan Lapshin
- Nina Ruslanova as Natasha Adashova
- Andrei MironovAndrei MironovAndrei Alexandrovich Mironov was a Soviet theatre and film actor who played lead roles in some of the most popular Soviet films, such as The Diamond Arm, Beware of the Car and Twelve Chairs...
as Khanin - Aleksei Zharkov as Okoshkin
- Zinaida Adamovich as Patrikeyevna
- Aleksandr FilippenkoAleksandr FilippenkoAleksandr Georgievich Filippenko is a famous Soviet and Russian actor. Filippenko was honored with People's Artist of Russia in 2000.-Biography:...
as Zanadvorov - Yuriy Kuznetsov as Superintendent
- Valeriy Filonov as Pobuzhinskiy
- Anatoli Slivnikov as Bychkov
- Andrei Dudarenko as Kashin
- Semyon FaradaSemyon FaradaSemyon L'vovich Ferdman, better known by his stage name Semyon Farada was a Soviet and Russian stage and film actor.- Early life :Ferdman was born into the Jewish family of Army officer Lev Ferdman and pharmacist Ida Shuman. His father died when Semyon was 14. Later he tried to pursue a military...
- Nina Usatova
- Lidiya Volkova
- Yuri Aroyan
- Natalya Laburtseva
- Anna Nikolayeva
- Anatoli Shvedersky
- Vladimir Tochilin
- Boris Vojtsekhovsky
- S. Kushakov, B. Meleshkin, Yu. Pomogayev, V. Sirotenko