Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThe Beginning (1970)
Director: Gleb Panfilov
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
About a girl who works in a factory, spends her spare time acting in a local drama group, and is discovered by a film director looking for an unknown to play Joan of Arc in his next movie, The Beginning avoids all the clichés you'd expect from a plot like this, souping the whole thing up by interweaving segments from the 'Joan' film with sequences around the girl's life. This is Panfilov's second film, and he has obviously absorbed his fair share of Bergman, Bresson, Forman and Godard, but generally without allowing their influence to get in the way. The film also says something about the manufacturing of stereotypes. At the end the girl is unemployed, doing the agency rounds before going back to where she came from, while the camera lingers on an impossibly glamorous poster of her outside a cinema.Author:
Cast & crew
Director: Gleb Panfilov
Cast: Inna Churikova, Leonid Kuravlev, Valentina Telichkina, Yuri Klepikov, Mikhail Kononov full cast
Duration: 90 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
What do you think?
Post your review now