The Cold Summer of 1953 (1988) User Reviews

watch the drama behind the action

[siarheimanakov · 9/10 · 1 December 2006]

Many said in their comments that this movie is sort of an action movie about good guys shooting bad guys. To me, this perception totally misses the idea of the movie. This film is absolutely not about shooting and action, even though there is plenty of it. It is about many things. It is about physical and more importantly deep psychological suffering of people who lived in exile during Stalin/Soviet repressions.

This film shows in a dramatic way lives of two people and their families being ruined buy the System. The film portrays two examples (out of millions) of one person who's gone through pain of World War II and one of a dedicated scientists who found themselves been thrown to a jail and their hopes broken at times when they were at their peak in life. Then they found themselves existing for many long and cold years in Siberian exile watching their lives slipping away from them.

Another important point of the film is showing the entire generations of people (with very few exceptions) being brainwashed and molded the way that state wanted them to be. At the same time the cynical nature of the system itself is also portrayed in many neat and subtle ways.

This film is like a book were you need to read between the lines, here you need to see behind the image. To me, being grown up in Soviet Union - it comes naturally in this case and the film grips me with its drama for its entire length having a very moving ending. But probably if you are not fluent in CCCP history and you don't know for example who Beria was, what the laws were like during cult of personality, what was the Belarussian front in World War II, who was Ordzhonikidze - without such little things and many others the film will be either very hard to follow (in this case it probably becomes sort of pretentious art house stile flick) or you just miss it completely and it is going to be just an aged action movie. Well watch it if you can, but it is 9 out of 10 from me.

Humanity survives even in exile

[Keltic-2 · 9/10 · 13 July 2000]

Grainy stock gives this film an almost documentary feel and has the additional effect of underscoring the dismal state of the trading outpost at which most of the events take place. _The Cold Summer of 1953_ is more authentic and less hysterical than _Gulag_, although it makes the same points with regards the social standing (or, more accurately, the complete lack of social standing) of political prisoners in postwar Russia. Looked down upon by even the most violent of criminals, the two political exiles still maintain a sense of dignity and, to some extent, honour, in the face of their privations.

a historical document

[btodorov · 8/10 · 1 April 2006]

The best about this movie is that it ended up to be not what it was expected. In terms of plot, it is a "Die Hard" kind of stuff in which a former intelligence officer subdues six dangerous men who are leaving a trail of blood in Siberia. In 2006, this movie seems to be nothing more than a decent adventure story with a reasonably tragic ending (the good girl and one of the good guys die) - after all, this is a Russian movie and cannot have a happy-ending. But the film was produced in 1987! What was originally meant to be a B-rated adventure story turned into the first ever widely screened Soviet movie which spoke of political prisoners and internal exiles. The "Cold Summer" is a remarkable example of the surreptitious ways dissident culture found for expressing political opinion - it is neither in the storyline, nor in the characters that we read the intended message, but in the discreet glimpses over the historical context. As of now, the movie may seem banal and even dull, but it is actually a living historical document.

good but complex

[red-55 · 10/10 · 1 December 1998]

This is a very good movie, however, one has to have some knowledge of Soviet history to fully understand it. The story takes place right after the death of Josef Stalin, to "celebrate" his death the Soviet command released all the prisoners within Soviet jails. All prisoners except the political ones, that is to say the rapists, murderers and thieves were freed while those who fought for freedom were still behind bars. That summer there was an unprecedented epidemic of crime in the Soviet Union. This film deals with the situation in a small village that has been attacked by a group of released prisoners, and the fight of one political prisoner to help the villagers.

Director Alexander Proshkin's film 'The cold summer of 1953' tackles the question of the enemies of the Russian state.

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 10/10 · 18 December 2015]

Generally, amnesty is provided to prisoners on humanitarian grounds in order to initiate reform process. However, there are instances when an offer of amnesty is misused by certain prisoners. Director Alexander Proshkin's Russian film "The cold summer of 1953" chronicles how some escaped convicts misuse amnesty provided to them to terrorize innocent villagers. Based on a series of true events which have a lot of historical significance for Russian people, Proshkin's film faithfully describes how the clash of ideologies continue to have a massive impact on the destinies of ordinary people. In the case of this film, Soviet leader Stalin's death enabled Beria to proclaim amnesty for hardened criminals, a group of people who were deemed as 'enemy of the state'. For a film which has a steady balance of action, drama and thriller, it is surprising to note that some space was also kept for portraying the innocence of ordinary people who were determined to continue with their ordinary lives. This quality would surely appeal to all viewers who might like to explore new facets of this film.

A monument to the generation

[tneprhawk · 10/10 · 6 May 2019]

One of the best Soviet movies. A must see along with reading Solzhenitsyn's books.

A Russian western

[nick_brown · 12 April 2001]

A violent gang take over a small town where a train carrying gold is shortly due to pass through. The local lawman stands up to them but is killed. Everyone else is too frightened to resist, except for a couple of strangers who everyone else views with suspicion but who have a final shoot out with the gang and save the town.

Sounds familiar? Like a lot of other westerns? Yes, except that the town is in Siberia, the gang are criminals released in an amnesty (prison bosses took the opportunity to relieve themselves of the prisoners who caused the most trouble) and the strangers in town are political exiles from Moscow.

It's well executed and entertaining, even with subtitles. It proves that certain ideas cross cultural boundaries.

the criminals are those who can't take criticism

[lee_eisenberg · 6/10 · 17 October 2015]

For thirty years, Joseph Stalin kept a tight grip on the Soviet Union, imprisoning and murdering millions. After he died, a number of people whom he had imprisoned got released. It turned out that among those were people who had committed violent crimes. Aleksandr Proshkin's "Kholodnoye leto pyatdesyat tretego" ("Cold Summer of 1953" in English) looks at the result of this. When a group of dangerous criminals takes over a rural village, a former political prisoner has to resort to extreme measures.

The movie got released during Mikhail Gorbachev's presidency. It was appropriate that in the period when criticism of its history became part of official Soviet policy, movies like this and "Little Vera" came out. They were finally willing to admit that they had been wrong about so many things. There could be no doubt that Stalin himself was the USSR's biggest criminal of all. Even Lavrentiy Beria, who freed a number of prisoners, organized the Soviet seizure of power in Eastern Europe.

I wouldn't call "Cold Summer of 1953" a masterpiece. At times it seems like an action movie. But it's a good look at this important part of Soviet history.

the last movie of our hero PAPANOV

[artlaub · 3 May 2004]

The movie is not bad, its a good movie which I give 7 points of 10. I must say that the movie is not from 1988, its from 1987. It was the last film of anatolij papanov, while the recording of this movie he died.Papanov is getting big in movie-business since the movie briljantnaja ruka(1969), he played there a criminal man with a special humor personality, It will even nowadays make a parody of his charakter by people like the music group'Krasnaya Plesen'. But 'holodnoje leto 53-go' shows that in the early days it was sometimes so that the real criminals, which killed and stealed people get out and people who were not criminals and made not much wrong had to working as a prisoner.

°°°°°°°°

A true terrific Russian movie

[searchanddestroy-1 · 28 December 2023]

That's exactly the kind of Russian film I crave for. No propaganda here, not any garbage junk destined to idiotic audiences. It is a dark, gloomy, realistic analysis of the Russian society thru this solid, strong story, pulled by powerful characters. Not destined to wide western countries audiences though, they are not smart enough - I mean the bulk of audiences, not EVERY AUDIENCE. I thought of LEVIATHAN, THE MAJOR, other outstanding features from Russia. OK, it may be slow, but it coincides with the plot set in Siberia. It is not FAST AND FURIOUS either.....The story is really engrossing for intelligent people who are curious enough to discover and watch it.