Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Maybe,it sounds not convincing for a public far by period or East realities. but it is a real masterpiece. first, for its unique freshness. because it is more than an inspired love story but a precise and profound wise portrait of society. second...because it is so deep Russian. not only as area but as spirit, in tradition of great literature and cinematography. not the less - for performances. for small presence , in cameo role of Innokenti Smoktunovski, for Batalov and for the magnificent work of Vera Alentova. not the last, for the taste after its end. a sort of emotion who escapes to description. because it is like the air of morning at the first steps out of house.

This is a life story of three girlfriends from youth to autumn ages. Their dreams and wishes, love, disillusions. Different careers. And big late love.Allegedly, US President Ronald Reagan watched the film several times prior to his meetings with the President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, in order to gain a better understanding of the "Russian soul". What is so odd about this is the idea that the Russian soul is all that different from the American soul, or any other country's soul. The women featured here could just as easily been American in most (if not all) of their adventures.That being said, I was a bit surprised about how "free" everything seemed. Russia gets a bad rap as a strict, awful place, but we actually get a very feminist vision in this story... and touch on some questionable subjects like abortion. Perhaps Soviet Russia was not what we think? (at least not by 1980.)

Funny title for a Russian soap opera taking place from the 1950s to the 1970s. Three country girls who become friends while living in a dorm together. Katerina is a college student who works in a factory and she watches an apartment for wealthy relatives. She and Lyudmila pretend to be rich kids in order to meet well to do men. Katerina hooks up with Rudolf, a camera man at a TV station and she becomes pregnant by him. He denies paternity and she has a daughter she names Alexandra.Twenty years later, Katerina is in charge of a factory and is still unmarried. She has a lover, an older man who has a wife. Rudolf reappears with a news team to do a report on the factory but doesn't remember Katarina. He eventually meets his daughter Alexandra but nothing is resolved in this Soviet Peyton Place. The mood is cold and so are the characters, and running over two hours, I was not overly impressed with the Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.

This movie is not likable by everyone, although I loved it. There is not much to this movie if we compare it with fast paced action, thriller of Hollywood or intense drama, but instead this is a simple movie of three women friends in general or more specifically of Katerina who is a hard working women, then successful women, unmarried mother and raises her well too. So this movie starts with the friendship of three women characters then shows how their lives are changed when two gets married and other didn't as she got pregnant and her boyfriend left her and then goes to their later stage of lives when they are not young any more and how their lives have changed. In short, I can say it is kind of character study from start to end (as characters grow at every segment of the movie like in the beginning they are in hostel having fun, partying and all, working, then get married, become mother and then later stage when one is successful but not that lucky in love, other lucky in love others having mixed life). Acting by the main character is very good and believable as fun loving girl, traditional at times, working women (working in factory with men's and even better at her job than others, she even repairs the machines), mother, and at the end lover. Other casts too are good and works well. Direction is good too. I think the reason for me liking this movie is its simplicity, in the story, the way it is presented; in down to earth characters one someone can relate to easily. So if you like such movies then you might like this one. Watch it.