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hyped garbage

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Produced during the thaw in the year of 1963 shortly after the Stalinist period, I am Twenty is a product of its time. The film follows the life and days of a recently discharged soldier Sergei, who goes back to his old neighborhood to find that things have changed since he was last there. Gathered around a table his friends and he talk about their aspirations and the ways things have been going for them after the reintroduction of things such as consumerism. Reality is harsh and the film does not waste time to address the difficulties in their lives. Including the struggle which is finding a job and being sole providers for new households. The cinematography itself is ingenious and goes a long way to portray these issues. The scene in which Sergei's friend is arguing with his partner over the phone while the camera stays fixated on a demolition juxtaposes these two ideas and conveys the message of the matters that this new era has to deal with. The scenes of Sergei running down the stairs at the start of the film and him following the Anya, his love interest, around also demonstrates the expertise that the cameramen have. The whole production was certainly much more progressive than what would have been accepted during the Stalinist period. Following the everyday lives of regular young soviet citizens, the film depicts a completely different reality then what had become known during earlier years. Including western elements such as the scene with the characters dancing to American music, the film is surely like no other before it. It is clearly distinguishing in it's story and the way it conveys the philosophies. It was enjoyable to watch this film and the way it took on more contemporary methodologies to introduce its characters.

Khutsiev's I Am Twenty is a frank exploration of the generation of Russians coming of age in the 1960s, and a portrayal of their struggle to find a place in the world. The film focuses on 23-year-old Sergei, his two closest friends, and his love interest Anya. All four of them face the disappointments of entering an adult world with wholly unexpected challenges and little knowledge of how to meet them. Slava attempts to remain chummy with his childhood friends as he tries to raise a child of his own, Kolia resists party politics at his research job, and Anya cannot take the responsibility of matching her words and actions. Sergei himself struggles to take life seriously, so unsure of the road that lies ahead of him that he has little idea what should be important. A recurring theme is the difficulty of finding direction and learning from one's elders. As Sergei says, the war has left Russia such that "almost all of us have no fathers," and those fortunate enough to speak with fathers can learn little from them. Anya's father resigns himself to the point of view that young people want to make their own decisions, and Sergei's vision of his own deceased father reminds viewers that the previous generation were themselves directionless young men when they died. Even the film's mechanics lack direction. Camera movements are often sudden, sometimes seemingly random, and events that are portrayed lack orchestration or integration into the plot–Sergei's unplanned chase through Moscow and the poetry reading respectively, for two examples. The movie leaves viewers without definite direction, but not without hope. The Moscow of I am Twenty is vibrant and beautiful. Streets are clean, orderly, and bustling with industry. Everything is bright, from the metro to Anya's face during the expository chase through the city, to Sergei's shirt during his early morning walk in Part II. Above all, everything–like the institute where characters study and work like their parents before them–is enduring. Most importantly, viewers are left with the promise that the revolution that drives this beautiful vision of Moscow will continue. I Am Twenty was released under the title of Lenin's Guard, and at the film's end this title takes meaning. Still unsure about his future, Sergei nonetheless discovers the importance of the Leninist principles that lead him on, and of his close friends. As the three comrades split up, Khutsiev inserts a shot of three soldiers walking together to relieve the old guard of Lenin's mausoleum. The symbolism is clear: whatever direction they take, the new generation will take the place of the old as guardians of Lenin's legacy.

I've always thought that a lot of films that were made in the Soviet Union got overshadowed by Eisenstein and Tarkovsky, not to mention by European films from France, Italy, by Bergman, by Kurosawa and many others from Japan. I feel sad when I think about that, because there are so many great films that were made there that the general film loving public did not and does not get to see. The only two films that may have broken out of this "embargo", so to speak were The Cranes are Flying and Ballad of a Soldier. Criterion has been doing some good deed and releasing a few of such great films I speak of in the Eclipse Series and I only hope they keep releasing them because there are just too many to list that others must see.I Am Twenty is one of those films. It was made during the de-Stalinization period, otherwise known as the Krushchev thaw where people had a short period of freedom of speech, which Hutsiev, the film's director utilized in making of this film, where the story centers on three friends in their 20's going through a sort of a quarter-life crisis in the Soviet Union, worrying about such things as where to live, means of getting money, and exactly what to do with their lives - which at the time was unheard of - one of the reasons for which Krushchev condemned this film during the end of the thaw (when it was being released) and most certainly which contributed to this film's censorship.This undoubtedly is the kind of film that speaks the universal language, which I hope would be an intriguing watch for people who can track this film down and watch it (there are English subtitles for it, I checked)Shot beautifully, flows poetically, and definitely leaves a mark.I loved it [07-22-2011, 08:23 PM]

I can't comment too much on the full movie. I am not a movie expert and it it has been several years since I saw it. Overall I found it to be an interesting and surprising view on Moscow in the early sixties. The way Moscow is presented it is not much different than any Western European town in the same period. On the other side, young people are young people with their own, but similar, problems everywhere in the world. This comment is about one particular scene. The chase sequence with Anya through Moscow is fantastic. I had seen parts of it on Dutch TV in a movie programme and made sure I saw the full movie when it showed in an art cinema. It builds up expectations until the crucial scene in the stairway where the male protagonist gets close to Anya, but in the end lets her slip away. Beautifully shot in black and white, melancholy and promise captured together.