The Thief
by Pavel Chukhraj
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Amaliya Mordvinova, Lidiya Savchenko, Misha Philipchuk, Vladimir Mashkov, Yekaterina RednikovaDirector: Pavel Chukhraj
Cinematographer: Vladimir Klimov
Writer: Pavel Chukhraj
Editor: Marina Dobryanskaya
Editor: Natalya Kucherenko
Producer: Igor Bortnikov
Producer: Igor Tolstunov
Producer: Sergei Kozlov
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Russian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-04-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures
Movie Reviews of The Thief
Movie Review: Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great movie during post war Russia in economical crisis and recovery. The child actor is excellent, as well as all others. Not your typical happy ending, but this isn't Hollywood. This is true to life and part of history. I rented this movie years ago and it stayed in my head. When I wanted to rent it again recently, I couldn't find it anywhere, not even in large mail rental companies. When I saw it for sale, I had to purchase it. This movie will never be outdated!
Summary of The Thief
If you were a widow with a young boy in 1952 Russia, you might take up with a handsome army captain you met on a train. You both would need protection from this post-war world in disarray. And what more solid figure than this officer whose chest proudly displays a tattoo of Stalin? Only the officer is a charismatic but often cruel and despotic thief in disguise named Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov). And the mother Katia (Ekaterina Rednikova), in love despite herself, and the 6-year-old Sanya (Misha Philipchuk), in wide-eyed adoration and fear, are stuck with a nomadic life that demands they relocate whenever their thief-protector's safety becomes chancy. This is the story as you experience it, told in voiceover years later by the boy, a romantic tale of challenged innocence as revisited by experience. And each frame, hazy and tinted with the erosion of memory, seems permeated with the distance between these two Sanyas.That's the experiential story. But there's another one that holds up Tolyan as Stalin and the boy as the New Russia that must rid itself of the tyrant, and that story is so pat it seems dispensable. Luckily, director Pavel Chukhraj has an interesting enough visual imagination, and a keen ability to either discover or tease out engaging performances, that you can quietly shut out the easy political allegory. As played by Vladimir Mashkov, Tolyan amply translates to the audience the fascination he holds for young Sanya and his mother. In fact, all three performances hold the eye and the mind, belying any programmatic elements embodied by the allegorical plot. The Thief was a 1998 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language film. --Jim Gay
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