The Orphans (Podranki)

Being one of former Soviet cinema´s best achievement, ”The Orphans” is also one of the many films that deals with the effect of war on children. Another film is ”Ivan´s childhood”, which also is a very good one. Actually there are many good Russian coming of age films, for example ”The return”, ”The greenhouse effect”, ”Lessons at the end of spring”, ”Father and son” and ”Freedom is paradise”. They all have in common an astonishing cinematography, very fine actors, and a genuine story, and they are all more deep and touching than most films from the US (with a few exceptions of course). If this Russian film has reached the bottom of a very deep lake, for example the US film ”Dog days of summer” is still floating on the surface cloathed in a life jacket. Russian coming of age films don´t wear life jackets. Enough said of that, here is the story in brief: Alyosha is a boy of about 12 years old and, being an orphan, he and his sister must beg and steal food in order to survive. Soon he is taken into a juvenile detention center where he gets education together with other orphan boys. Everything is seen through the memories of the grown up Alyosha, like in the film ”Dog days of summer”. The film is dated back to 1977, but still is totally enjoyable. The film music is by Vivaldi, which is a good choice. The director is Nikolai Gubenko. I don´t want to spoil more of the story, but would like to recommend that you watch the film yourself. I would give it 4.5 points out of 5. I found this film at CVMC but it´s possible that the film also can be found at amazon.com and other commercial sites.