The film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" follows three girls who have just recently moved to Moscow. They each have different aspirations and expectations in the city. The most out going of the three is Lyudmila. She is always very optimistic and at times is best described as a gold digger. Her sole aspiration is to find a well off man and marry him. To achieve this she lies and manipulates men constantly. She discriminates against all suitors based almost solely on their economic status. Eventually she finds a great, well-off man and the get married but the marriage eventually fails. She becomes the only of the three women to end up unmarried by the end of the film. This is most likely due to represent the faults in the ways of living for material possessions. By the end of the movie she does make a remark that implies she longs for true love.
One of the other girls is Tonya. Of the three Tonya is the most sensible one. All she wants is a decent job a good husband and a happy family. She achieves all of these goals in a quick matter. She finds a husband who loves her and treats her and her friends well. By the end of the movie it could be debated that she is the most fulfilled and successful of three, at the very least at a spiritual level.
The final of the three girls is Katya. In the beginning she is devoted almost solely on her studies. Lyudmila persuades her to focus more on men, which ends up leading to her falling for a man named Rudolph. This relationship leads to Katya getting pregnant and Rudolph leaves her. This devastates her and slightly derails her life. Instead of becoming the great chemist that she planned to be at the beginning she becomes a director at the factory she worked at and vowed to someday leave. Even though she is a quite successful single parent her lack of a love life leaves her unfulfilled. Eventually she meets a man named Gosha. Gosha is a good man that for the most part treats Katya and her daughter very well but he is an extremely proud man. He is obsessed with being a well respected man and occasionally blows up at Katya for simply speaking her mind and expressing her will towards him. I personally found it very interesting that Katya referred to him as the perfect man several times after he gets infuriated that Rudolph shows up at their house unannounced in hopes of meeting his long lost daughter. Even though this is no fault of Katya, Gosha leaves her for this. Although he does come back and it is made to be believed that he Katya live out a happy life at the end of the film, it perplexes me how she is so eager to take him back after he treated her so wrong.
That is something I hadn't originally thought about it but that is surprising how willing Katya is so willing to take Gosha back after how poorly he treated her.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people have problems with the ending--and with Gosha's attitude towards the status women should hold, etc. You'll notice both of our books for this class take a relatively negative attitude toward the way the film closes out. While I can see what you and they are saying--there's still something about Gosha's character that I like...and I can't help but feel that their relationship is a strong and sound one by the end.
ReplyDeleteThis, by the way, is the film Ronald Reagan was told to watch so that he could understand the Russians a bit better.