Synopsis
The Forty-First (1956) is a Soviet colour war drama directed by Grigory Chukhrai — watch it online on iFILM. Adapted from Boris Lavrenev's 1926 novella, the film frames one of the most impossible love stories to come out of Russia's Civil War.
A Red Army detachment is crossing the Central Asian desert, half-dead with thirst. Maryutka (Isolda Izvitskaya), the unit's sharpshooter, has forty White Guard kills in her count. When they capture a White Army lieutenant — polished aristocrat Govorukha-Otrok (Oleg Strizhenov) — she is ordered to escort him through the desert and across open sea. What builds between them, across a war that defines them as enemies, neither can explain or afford.
Chukhrai delivered a tragedy without a clear villain, and the 1957 Cannes jury took note — Special Jury Prize. It remains one of the few Soviet films that does not flinch from the collision between ideology and feeling. Watch The Forty-First online on iFILM.
Starring
Comments 0