Synopsis
The Barber of Siberia (1998) is a historical epic from Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, available to watch online on iFILM. In the Russia of Tsar Alexander III, an American woman named Jane arrives in Moscow to help push an outlandish machine past the imperial bureaucracy.
The "Barber of Siberia" is no barber at all but a colossal steam-powered logging engine, and winning the contract is the real game of the schemer who hires Jane (Julia Ormond). Her task is to charm General Radlov into signing off. Along the way, though, she meets young cadet Andrei Tolstoy (Oleg Menshikov), and the spark between them upends every plan. Jealousy, a duel and one fatal mistake tear them apart, sending Andrei to Siberia in chains.
Mikhalkov builds a sweeping three-hour canvas about a Russian soul no foreigner can quite decode — full of cadet balls, riotous Maslenitsa and Mozart. Menshikov, twice the age of the twenty-year-old he plays, pulls it off with startling conviction, and the director himself turns up as the Tsar. Grand costume cinema for an unhurried evening. Stream The Barber of Siberia online on iFILM.
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