The Long Farewell (1971) User Reviews

The story of a possessive love of a mother for her only son.

[drbagrov · 10/10 · 1 September 2005]

It is a great film by a great director.Kira Muratova has never been given her due in the Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.In the "Long Good Bye" she depicts a seemingly banal story of a jealous and possessive mother (brilliantly acted by Zinaida Sharko) and her poor aloof and lonely son (the only cinematic role by the talented O. Vladimirsky). The story - which is nothing extraordinary in itself - grows into the wonderful and frightening analysis of alienation between genders and generations on the background of the even more frighteningly bleak and dehumanized Soviet reality.Kira Muratova shows the tiny details of everyday Soviet life,and, again , banal as they are ,they are a hair-raising horror.The dialogue is deliberately laconic and void of any sense, showing the ever-growing people's inability to communicate and understand each other.The sound track ( by another under-estimated talent, Oleg Karavaichuk)adds to the atmosphere of hopeless and meaningless existence.Of course,Sasha (the name of the protagonist),will leave his despotic ( but loving!) mother sooner or later, but where for?...

A great achievement

[darii73 · 10/10 · 27 July 2007]

This film is an existential drama par excellence, and watching it is almost a transformative experience. Yet there are no dreamlike sequences or other hallmarks of this genre here. It looks like a typical family drama about a mother who can't bear her son leave her to go away and live with his father, who abandoned them long ago. But the dialogue is often repetitive to the point of being downright nonsensical, and Muratova creates such a profoundly melancholic atmosphere that one comes to realize that the characters exist on the verge of death, in a disjointed world where no meaningful action is possible. Zinaida Sharko, a great theatre actress, gives a performance of her life: a domineering, yet defenseless, mother whose life is about to unravel. The final scene is carefully optimistic: choice is possible after all, the son will probably stay with his mother. Sharko in this scene goes beyond "good acting": she shows a momentary leap from ultimate despair back to life.

Kira Muratova proves that she is one of the most talented and original filmmakers ever. 10/10

It's what i call a real creation.

[Jazz and Mark · 10/10 · 27 March 2002]

It's just Muratova's fourth film that i saw,but that's quite enough to realize that we deal with one of the most talented and unconventional directors in modern avant-garde.I can't help being surprised with Muratova's capability of turning a banal and ordinary situation into inadequate story.Chilling optimism of Muratova,sometimes brutal,might bring over-sensitive viewer to the condition of psychological anabios, in rare cases to soul suicide.To watch her movies voluntarily is a pure masochism.Director's gloomy look at everything that breathes and moves is emphasized with successfully fitted depressive-monotonic soundtrack executed by classic piano,which in turn knocks out of you last drops of hope and petty-bourgeois happiness. To drink,to sleep,to defecate,to propagate and to grow children-all of them are mechanical activities,instinctive functions of human being. Nevertheless there's something spiritual separating Homo-Sapiens from animals which doesn't exist in Muratova's protagonists.Such phenomenons as healthy feelings are deleted.I'd definite "Dolls-Brats playing human beings". She rips everyone,leaving only body and mechanisms which he's filled in with.Trust me,to experience that is not the most pleasant feeling.But Muratova forces you to feel it,and probably it's objective proof of her uniqueness.