The best Lyudmila Semyonova’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Lyudmila Semyonova’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Lyudmila Semyonova.
The Steamroller and the Violin
7.4/10
Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally meets and befriends worker Sergei, who works on a steamroller in their upscale Moscow neighborhood.
The New Babylon
7.2/10
In the short-lived Commune of Paris, a conscripted soldier falls in love with a Communard saleswoman. As the army cracks down on the revolutionaries, the soldier is forced to fight against the Commune, and the pair's love is put to the test.
Bed and Sofa
7.3/10
A married couple have a small apartment in Moscow. When an old friend of the husband's arrives in the city, he is unable to find lodgings. Kolia, the husband, invites his friend to move in with them.
Fragment of an Empire
7.3/10
Described by historian Paul Rotha as "the epitome of the Soviet propaganda film, realized with extraordinary skill of technical achievement", Fragment of an Empire was the first important film effort by director Frederick Ermler. Combining documentary techniques with straight dramatic narrative, the film focuses on a sergeant in the army of the Czar who loses track of his lovely wife. By the time he's discovered that his bride has re-married to an aristocrat, the sergeant has experienced a political epiphany, disdaining Imperialism in favor of the burgeoning Bolshevist movement.
My Son
6.6/10
A man discovers that he's not the father of his wife's baby.
The Devil's Wheel
6.6/10
Typically of the heady days of early Soviet cinema, this is constructed according to the fast, sharp editing principles advocated by Eisenstein, complete with symbolic inserts; but in terms of subject matter, it's much less explicitly political than most movies emerging from Russia in the '20s. Chronicling a young sailor's descent into a murky, treacherous underworld of pimps and thieves, after having encountered a Louise Brooks lookalike at a fairground and missed his departing boat, it's a lively moral fable that delights in vivid visual effects and quirky characterisations. If the plot occasionally reveals gaping holes, and the tacked-on ending urging the clearance of the Leningrad slums seems to be rather gratuitous, there's enough going on to keep one attentive and amused.
My Motherland
5.7/10
Юбилей
7.1/10
