Maria's Lovers

Soldiers returning from the wars is a perennially hardy theme for revealing not only the mental ruinations of conflict, but also the way in which home is never quite the place you left behind. Savage, as the Slav soldier returning to his rural Pennsylvania home after World War II, is unable to face the reality of the woman he has kept stored in his dreams (Kinski), and he has to undergo further exile and debasement before he can return to his community once more whole. It may be Konchalovsky's own exile which makes some scenes waver on an edge of uncertainty, but there is still much to admire: filming the American heartlands so that they look like the Steppes is no mean achievement, nor is conjuring a very moving love scene between Mitchum and Kinski. CPea.