Autumn Marathon (1979)
Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin, who makes a living by teaching at an institute and translating English literature, is cheating on his wife. Buzykin's main problem is that he's a kind man with a weak character. The lies he is telling his wife all the time are inconvincing, but he never has the courage to tell her the truth. His lover, Alla, is aware of his family life, but gets offended when, for example, he cannot meet her so that he doesn't come home late, or when he doesn't want to go home in a new jacket she gives him to avoid having to explain to his wife. Alla and Nina, Andrei's wife, both leave him, forgive him, and return to him at the same time, and Andrei continues with this kind of life, full of suffering and deceit. Finally, both women are so fed up with his lies that they don't believe him even when he is telling the truth...
Watch Trailer
Free Trial Channels
Cast
Reviews
A different way of telling a story
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
While I did enjoy watching this film, I will preface that it was entertaining to watch but the film doesn't deliver as well in the comedy area despite being labeled as a dramatic comedy. There were really one one or two scenes in the movie that particularly made me laugh or elicited a chuckle, while most of the other scenes fell short of that mark. That does not mean the film was bad by any means, rather in my opinion it managed to keep my attention and Andrey's character or rather lack of character was something that hit close to home, in a good way though. The supporting characters complemented the plot very well and the situations that Andrey got himself into made me further interested in what was to come next. I would definitely recommend this film even to those who have no idea about Russian film.
In "Autumn Marathon" aka Osenniy Marafon, a romantic Russian comedy about a man who struggles with trying to make his wife, his mistress, his friends, and himself happy. Oleg Basilashvili aka. Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin is a literary translator who is cursed by irresolution and decency. Andrey has an affair which eventually leads both his mistress and his wife to leave him because they are tired of being unhappy. Although this movie was a little to long in telling this romantic comedy, the plot of the story is describe in great depth. The reader is able to follow along with the time line and follow what is happening between a man and these two women throughout the entire plot. Lastly, this comedy brings up vital issues about an individuals choices and the value of an individuals life. Life is very precious but at any moment, one can have everything and at another it can disappear with in a matter of minutes.
This film was a great watch. It was comical while still proving a point. It is a classic film about a man who is simply unhappy with his life who uses women to try to fill the void in his life. Throughout the course of the film, Andrey encounters many comical situations while trying to keep his double life a secret, and keep everyone involved in his web of lies happy. In the end however, he is still unhappy as is his wife and his lover. His unhappiness with his life and general confusion about what exactly he's looking for leads him unable to determine who he really wants to be with, and All parties are left unhappy with no real solution to the problem at hand. Overall, this film was a great watch. It kept my attention the entire time and I enjoyed watching it waiting to see what antics were going to occur next, or how the problem was going to be resolved.
This film takes a while to get going, but once it does it's a pretty good film. I strongly recommend it to those who'd like to see how ordinary people lived in the USSR in the early 80s.The film takes place in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), which is Russia's second largest city after Moscow. The cinematographer is this film is a very good one, and there are a lot of great compositional shots... I'd say that the cinematography in this film seems more western than a lot of other Russian films. The editing work and script, by contrast, is not always so good, especially in the beginning of the film (for the first 1/2 hour I didn't even know who the main character was!). The actors are all very believable though, and by the end of the film I pretty much understood everything that I was so confused about at first.This film isn't a traditional comedy; it's more of a sad morality tale told with some humour to keep it from becoming depressing. If you liked "Moscow Does not Believe in Tears", you may like this movie as well. Interesting to note is that the director was female (EDIT: Sorry folks, he's male. I assumed that the director was Russian, in which case a last name ending with "a" would signify a female).Overall, I'd give it a 7/10. Westerners may want to watch this if they want to see a "typical" Soviet movie from the last half of the century. Most critics only notice the more "avant garde" movies of Soviet cinema like "Andrei Rublev" or "Battleship Potemkin", and that becomes people's impression of what Russian movies are like. This is for those who want to see a simple movie about a man's life that can be pretty much universal anywhere; there is no over-the-top patriotism or strangeness in this film and it's a good film regardless. BTW, the Russian voices are better than the English voice-overs.