Not so long ago There Resided an easy Lady (Zila-bila odna baba)

A Movie Co. production. (Worldwide sales: Film Co., Moscow.) Created by Andrey Smirnov, Elena Smirnova. Directed, compiled by Andrey Smirnov.With: Darya Yekamasova, Vlad Abashin, Maxim Averin, Aleksey Serebryakov, Aleksey Shevshenkov, Roman Madynav, Vsevolod Shilovsky.Getting abandoned pointing for 3 decades, exasperated by Soviet censorship, vet Russian helmer Andrey Smirnov returns with "Not so long ago There Resided an easy Lady," an ambitious, 156-minute epic replay from the Russian Revolution as seen with the googly eyes of the peasant who comprises in survival abilities what she lacks in brainpower. If fellow returnee Alexi German's "Krustalyov, My Vehicle!" (1998) leaking over and done with 12 years' price of passionate motion picture ideas, "Once" teems with 3 decades of misanthropic, near-apocalyptic bitterness. Strikingly pictorial, fest-friendly but mean-spirited auteur curio will most likely not find distribution outdoors Eastern Europe. Smirnov's saga spans the time of 1909-23 in Tambov, one's heart from the bloody peasant revolt of 1920-21 against collectivization. It represents a period as superstitious, venal and brutal as were the Dark Ages in Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev," that "Once" will probably be unflatteringly in comparison. Smirnov's heroine, Varvara (Darya Yakamasova), suffers through a lot more than her share of beatings, rapes and assorted indignities as a result of relatives (she's whipped ferociously by her father-in-law whenever a equine under her care falls sick), husbands (four, finally count), marauding soldiers and finish other people. Pic is split into two parts, the very first section research in limited awareness that juxtaposes Varvara's uncomprehending, slack-jawed stare using the bigger historic forces playing out round her. Within the second part, that tension no more fuels the narrative as she starts to have interaction, just like a childless Mother Courage carving out her corner of exploitation inside the political morass of publish-revolutionary Russia. As the Bolsheviks are clearly cast as archvillains, their impossible, starvation-inducing grain levies and chapel desecrations driving the peasants to revolt, Smirnov makes little distinction between your natural bestiality from the peasant class and also the ideological cruelty from the revolution, as rapaciousness, superstition, envy and sadism overtake the Russian psyche. Smirnov then concocts a ton of scriptural proportions to eliminate the Bolsheviks inside a tumultuous wave of historic revisionism more radical than anything Stalin ever dreamed of. Aside from the compositional mastery apparent throughout, it's extremely difficult to reconcile the luminous fragility from the young girl in Smirnov's "Angel" (1967), the war-forged camaraderie in the "Belarus Station" (1973) or even the lovers' rueful nostalgia in the "Fall" (1974) with this particular ferocious litany decrying man's inhumanity to guy.Camera (color, widescreen), Nikolay Ivasiv, Yuriy Shaygardanov editor, Alla Urazbaeva music supervisor, Olga Yukecheva production designer, Vladimir Gudilin costume designer, Lydmila Gainceva seem (Dolby SRD), Andrey Hudyakov casting, Tatyana Talkova second unit director, Irina Tretyakova. Examined at Montreal World Film Festival (competing), August. 26, 2011. Running time: 156 MIN. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com