Uncle Vanya / Dyadya Vanya
Andrei Konchalovsky, 1970; 104m

"The best Uncle Vanya I've ever seen."
Woody Allen

"An exceedingly graceful, beautifully acted production that manages to respect Chekhov as a man of his own time, as well as what I would assume to be the Soviet view of Chekhov as Russia's saddest, gentlest, funniest and most compassionate revolutionary playwright."
Vincent Canby, The New York Times



Chekhov's masterwork about the breakdown of a family held together by a tissue of lies and self-deceptions is brought to stunning life in Andrei Konchalovsky's brilliant adaptation. A retired professor returns with his new, much younger wife in tow to the estate that he inherited fro his now-deceased first wife. The estate is still managed by his former brother-in-law, Vanya, a man who has learned to sublimate all his personal desires and dreams. The delicate balance that defines the world of this fading clan is decidedly upset by the arrival of the professor's new wife, and once broken that balance will prove impossible to restore. Konchalovsky effectively captures the mood of a world coming to an end, the peeling paint and slightly ramshackle condition of the house signaling the future of these characters even more succinctly than their actions. The all-star cast includes Innokenti Smoktunovsky (Vanya), Irina Miroshnichenko (Yelena) and Sergei Bondarchuk (Astrov).