Dark Eyes

Dark Eyes (Очи черные, 1987) is Nikita Mikhalkov's bittersweet comedy drawn from Chekhov, and you can watch it online on iFILM. On a slow steamer an aging Italian, Romano, corners a Russian stranger and tells him the story of his life — the story of a man who let everything slip through his fingers.

Years earlier, at a European spa, Romano met a married Russian woman named Anna. A casual flirtation turned into something he couldn't shake, and he walked out on his comfortable Italian marriage to chase her into the Russian provinces. Marcello Mastroianni plays the charming idler to perfection: a man who loves grandly and finishes nothing. Around him are Elena Safonova, Oleg Tabakov and Innokenty Smoktunovsky, and a small-town Russia drawn with equal parts mockery and tenderness.

The role landed Mastroianni the Best Actor prize at Cannes and an Oscar nomination. The whole film rests on that face — funny, guilty, quietly falling apart — and the farce keeps cracking open to reveal a wasted life underneath. It's for anyone who loves Chekhov, Italian cinema and sad endings disguised as comedies. Stream Dark Eyes (1987) online on iFILM.