Anna
by Nikita Mikhalkov
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Director: Nikita MikhalkovEdition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); Russian (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Running Time: 99 minutes
Release Date: 1999-02-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Studio: New Yorker Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Anna
Movie Review: Simple and sweet
Summary: 5 Stars
Sometimes, it is the simplest, sweetest things in life that have the most impact on one's psyche. As a student of international relations, my focus is Russia and Eastern Europe. This film is not a piece filled with overly-artistic, distracting elements. It is a simple piece on the life of a young girl, growing up under Soviet rule, who later experiences the demise of what she was she was taught to love. Perhaps it is compelling because the film is set at a time in which I can personally remember these events. As a young girl, a slight bit younger than Anna, I can relate to Anna's story, albeit from a different perspective, that makes this film so enticing.
It is an interesting look into the life of a family under Soviet rule, and its demise. It paints an image of life that is unforgettable and undeniably interesting. It is truly a gift to be able to peer into someone's personal experience under something so callous and cold as the Soviet rule. This film is a combination of documentary and film , brilliantly combined to exoke myriad emotions.
Do not expect too much from this work and you can see the masterpiece that it is. Anna is truly an enjoyable film, even for those not specifically intrigued with Russian culture. Enjoy.
Movie Review: MUCH LESS IMPORTANT THAN IT WISHES
Summary: 1 Stars
In a nutshell: daughter Anna gets fatter, Russia loses some weight. The pretentious voiceover is so deadpan that you realize the Anna's father/director actually convinces himself that his forbidden home movies have meaning beyond his own wishful (f)artistic pseudomartyrdom. Plays like a bad segment from Michael Apted's __UP series on continuous repeat with a voice-over pasted on from the boringest most egotistical professor you've ever had.Movie Review: Educational but Hardly Enlightening
Summary: 3 Stars
Mikhalkov may have just as well labeled Anna "for Western audiences only." His narrative is a catalogue of disparate and incongruous thoughts, commentaries and ideas that flooded the public discourse in Russia in the immediate wake of the Soviet Union's collapse. The film's usefulness is limited to chronicling, not providing an insightful analysis of, what happened in the last days of the Soviet Union. Word of caution: Mikhalkov's perspective is unmistakeably Russian, unfailingly ignorant of or oblivious to the experiences of non-Russian peoples in USSR--Balts, Central Asians and other non-Slavs. I must admit the flowery, cliched language of Mikhalkov's voice-over (I am a native Russian speaker) left me irritated. The poetic pretensions of his commentary were designed, I am sure, to evoke the simultaneously unique and universal "humanness" of his own experiences and of those of his family, but they sounded banal at best and rang false at worst. I do not begrudge his having had a "dacha" near Moscow (in addition to a nice apartment in the city) or having a personal Mercedes in the early 1980s--he was a beloved actor and director in the Soviet cinema and he deserved the material rewards wrought by his labor. His perspective is not unwelcome, it is simply unrepresentative of the vast, overwhelming majority of people's experiences in the Soviet Union.
Mikhalkov's biggest failure in Anna is his inability to truly listen to what his daughter was saying without attempting to find validation for his own theories. Because I at times saw myself in Anna (we are the same age and I also grew up in the Soviet Union), I was somewhat upset at Mikhalkov's inability to trust her, trust that the naivete and purity of childhood will eventually give way to serious contemplation and that inevitably, Anna will understand the truth about the country she was born into. Did he not say in the beginning of the film that he cried at the news of Stalin's death? He also seems to think that indoctrination only occurs in oppressive regimes and does not realize that imparting any information to children qualifies as indoctrination. There is nothing inherently strange or "communist" about being afraid of war. American kids in the 1970s and 1980s grew up on Red Dawn, for Pete's sake, and were as terrified of invading "Russians" as Russians were of America.
And the conclusion, frankly, is not a conclusion at all. Crying at the mention of one's country may be a sign of patriotism, as Anna does. What I want to know is whether Anna came back to Russia after studying in Switzerland. That would be a befitting end to the story of her self-discovery and a true test of her patriotism.
Movie Review: history through a child's eyes
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1980, director Nikita Mikhalkov ("Burnt by the Sun") began filming a clandestine home-movie of his six-year-old daughter Anna. By asking her the same five questions every year for thirteen years, and juxtaposing her answers against a collage of Soviet historical events, Mikhalkov reveals the effects of propaganda and patriotic fervor on the developing mind of a child. Little Anna's greatest fear, Baba Yaga the Witch of fairytale, is replaced by the terror of American nuclear weapons she believes aimed at her home and family. As Anna matures, she begins to doubt her Soviet indoctrination and the absolute "truths" she trusted as a child. I feel a parallel empathy with Anna: as a "babyboomer" and quintessential "product of the sixties", I experienced a similar reevaluation of "infallible" doctrines, those of Church and Society I had once accepted without question. "Anna" is a wonderful movie, not to be missed. The rare, archival historical footage is extraordinary. The young girl is utterly charming. Mikhalkov's family portrait very gently challenges Western stereotypes about the Russian people.Movie Review: THE WORLD THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD...
Summary: 4 Stars
This film was quite an interesting exercise although it is by no means a conventional film. Acclaimed Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov filmed his own daughter, Anna, at various intervals in her young life (between the ages of 6 and 18) and asked her the same series of questions. Of course, the concept has been tried before with the Seven-Up documentary series, but this was somehow a more personal operation and also a riskier one. In the Soviet Union it was forbidden to take home movies with the aid of film and camera crews, but these crews risked helping Mikhalkov film. At one point some of the footage was even confiscated, but eventually the completed film was released. Anna was a charming little girl, and you can see how she changes and how her thoughts and concerns change. As a child she is scared, for example, of childish things. Later in life she becomes more guarded, more shy, and she cares about far more in depth issues. In a way it is an examination of the loss of naivete and innocence, and in that sense, the film is quite sad. But it is a beautiful picture, and it will be worth watching.
Summary of Anna
In the Soviet Union it was forbidden to shoot home movies, but noted director Nikita Mikhalkov (who won an Oscar? for Burnt by the Sun) ignored that prohibition and secretly filmed his daughter Anna across a span of 13 years. Every year Mikhalkov would ask the child the same five questions, and the film from their casual interviews would be secretly processed. This intimate look at a little girl's growing consciousness became the backbone of what turned out to be a startling and brilliant documentary. Mikhalkov happened to be surreptitiously filming his daughter during a span of time when the Soviet Union would change enormously, as Leonid Brezhnev died and his successors gradually began making changes that would lead to the dismantling of the USSR and the emergence of a new Russia. Footage of a young Anna smiling and answering her father's questions are deftly contrasted with newsreel footage of a Communist youth rally presided over by the aged Leonid Brezhnev. And at one point, as Anna gets older, she mentions her fear of "giving wrong answers," and the stifling atmosphere created by the Soviet state becomes apparent. As things begin to change profoundly in the late 1980s, a loosening society is shown, and Anna's own development into a thoughtful young woman becomes an analogue for changing attitudes in Russia itself. This film is a profound and powerful meditation on both family and nationhood, and it stands as a remarkable work of art. --Robert J. McNamaraRussia Video
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