Oleg Yankovskiy
Birthday: 1944-02-23 Place of Birth: Bolshoy Dzhezkazgan, USSR [now Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan]
Synopsis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Oleg Ivanovich Yankovsky (Russian: Оле́г Ива́нович Янко́вский; February 23, 1944 – May 20, 2009) was a Soviet/Russian actor who has excelled in psychologically sophisticated roles of modern intellectuals. In 1991, he became, together with Alla Pugacheva, the last person to be named a People's Artist of the USSR.
Acting
Mirror
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
Tsar
In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission. Believing he can understand and interpret the signs, he sees the Last Judgment approaching. He establishes absolute power, cruelly destroying anyone who gets in his way. During this reign of terror, Philip, the superior of the monastery on the Solovetsky Islands, a great scholar and Ivan's close friend, dares to oppose the sovereign's mystical tyranny. What follows is a clash between two completely opposite visions of the world, smashing morality and justice, God and men. A grand-scale film with excellent leading roles by Mamonov and Yankovsky. An allegory of Stalinist Russia
Poor, Poor Pavel
Lenfilm's most recent major production spins a kind of historical fantasy based on real incidents that's full of ominous implications for today. One night, a patrol rushes into the chambers of the Russian prince Pavel, son of the Empress Catherine; the Empress has died, and Pavel is to be anointed the new Tsar. Thought to be feeble-minded at best and crazy at worst, Pavel soon lives up to his enemies' fears: he dismisses long-serving courtiers, demands that peasants only work three days a week, and declares that state officials should start their days at 5 am. Soon, it seems that everyone who can is trying to hatch some kind of plot against him - including his own sons. Sumptuously designed, POOR POOR PAVEL constrasts the imperial splendor of the court with the sordid atmosphere of conspiracies and backstabbing that comes to define these characters' lives.
The Lover
This is a remarkably subtle film–a character study that focuses on Mitya’s attempts to cope with each new startling phase of discovery. At first he mourns for his dead wife, but then he discovers that he didn’t really know her.
The Man Who Cried
A young refugee travels from Russia to America in search of her lost father and falls in love with a gypsy horseman.
Come Look at Me
The movie is about an old disabled lady who lives with her spinster daughter. The lady desperately wants her daughter to marry, and the daughter, driven by the supposed imminent death of her mother, invites a total stranger home and introduces him as her boyfriend. The man and the prospective mother-in-law eventually start to like each other, and he makes every effort to be liked by the daughter. With the intervention of a fantasy granddaughter, quasi-miraculous healing, and a lot of hilarious repartee in between, the movie has a happy ending.
Assassin of the Tsar
A new doctor from Moscow arrives at a provincial mental institution. His interest is the peculiarities of the psyche of a patient who believes that he is Yakov Yurovsky, the man who assassinated the last Russian tsar. In the course of their conversations it transpires that the patient is a kind of philosopher, not without a gift for suggestion. In a while the doctor himself falls under his patient’s influence: he tends to relive that fatal night of June 16-17, 1918 when, without any investigation or trial, Tsar Nicholas II, who had recently abdicated, was murdered, together with his wife, daughters and incurably ill heir. Soon the doctor realizes that the tragedy of the last Russian tsar is in part his own tragedy, too...
The Passport
A man, who becomes mistaken for his brother who was immigrating to Israel from USSR, finds himself caught up in the middle of a bureaucratic mess when he realizes that if he tells the truth about who he is, he will go to jail and his brother's family will never be allowed to leave the USSR. He therefore assumes his brother's identity to get to Israel hoping his distant uncle living there will help him out. The plan backfires, however, when he realizes that the uncle is a paranoid lunatic thinking the KGB is out to get him. He becomes stranded in Israel with no friends, no money, and no passport, trying to figure out a way to get back home.
To Kill a Dragon
Dragon is a bloody dictator, who kills every opponent. People live hopelessly, until Lancelot comes to save the beautiful Elsa. Lancelot can only win, if all people become free from fear, that is feeding the Dragon's power. Dragon's multiple personalities, ranging from a "dragon" to a "samurai" to a "Nazi", scare the hell out of all people, except Lancelot. Finally Dragon drops all his masks, to become the most dangerous of his incarnations - "himself". And the battle begins
Kreutzer Sonata
A revelatory discussion on a train. Based on Leo Tolstoy's novel of the same name.
Nostalgia
A Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy to research the life of an 18th-century composer.
Flights in Dreams and in Reality
On the eve of his fortieth anniversary Sergei Makarov looks back at his life and learns that he has achieved nothing. He was not able to be happy and to bring happiness to the closest people in his life, neither to his long-suffering wife nor young mistress nor friends nor work... It is about the men who never grew up and could not find themselves in the time of stagnation – gifted, charming, but infantile and lost, they never were able to realize themselves...
The House That Swift Built
An immaculate, vivid and breathtaking implementation of Swift's romanticism.
The Very Same Munchhausen
A philosophical and poetic portrait of the famous (or maybe infamous?) Baron Munchhausen. His crazy, yet very merriment, stories, views and behavior is what sets him apart from others. He becomes alienated from the society that failed to grasp his brilliance. In fact, his brilliance is what underlines the faults with the society itself. It's a beautiful yet tragic story that is filled with dense and intellectual dialogue.
My Tender and Affectionate Beast
An aristocrat falls for a young woman who brings him ruin. Based on Chekhov's story. AKA A Hunting Accident, The Shooting Party.
Ordinary Miracle
A wizard invents characters who all come to life and start to arrive at his house: a King, his servants, a princes, a bear trapped in a man's body - the usual lot. The Plot mainly rotates around the bear, who the wizard had turned into a man. The Bear, who wishes to be a bear once again, can turn into his old self if he were to kiss a princess. It gets complicated when he falls in love with that princess, that arrived at the wizard's house. For how can they be together, if a single kiss will destroy their love?
A Sweet Woman
A story about life and love of a young girl Anna who moves from her village to a big city.
Other People's Letters
Zina is sixteen. She is a manipulative schoolgirl living in a small Russian town among sincere and simple people. Zina is nice on the surface, but so unable to enjoy normal life, that she is desperately trying to hurt someone. She tries to seduce and compromise a handsome young man, but he is smart enough to see through her and escapes from her trap. Zina manipulates her classmates so she looks like a victim. Now Zina's teacher, Vera, a sweet and loving lady, takes care of her trying to save the troubled girl, but in return, Zina becomes extremely crafty to hurt the teacher.
The Captivating Star of Happiness
In December 1825, distinguished members of the Russian military, most of whom were quite affluent and of noble lineage, took it upon themselves to stir revolution against the autocratic and tyrannical Czar Nikolai I in the wake of his not honoring the drafting of a constitution for the Russian people. The revolution failed miserably and the conspirators (known as the Decembrists) were weeded out by the czar himself. One by one, each of the conspirators confess and are systematically exiled to the harsh winters of Siberia, slated to work and wither in a prison/mine. The wives of the conspirators are faced with the prospect of leaving the bosom of wealth and family (including their own children) to be with their husbands in the brutal Siberian locale. If they agree to this, they face having their illustrious social stations stripped away and certain disdain from everyone around them...
The Bonus
A small construction team led by Potapov suddenly refuses to receive a bonus payment from their company for exceeding performance targets. The team accuses its construction company HQ with artificially reducing the targets, so they can be easily exceeded. It makes the management looks good, yet leads to frequent downtime reducing earnings for common construction workers even with fake bonuses. On a hastily organized meeting the management tries to subdue the "unruly" gang leader charging that he cannot know all details. It turned out that Potapov and his team prepared a detailed business analysis, which proved their point. Managers, who had different interests and positions, have to decide how to deal with the real problem leading to unexpected results.
A Ballad of Love
Leningrade. Galina works as a restorer at Catherine Palace; she is a sculptor as well and takes her profession very seriously and enthusiastically. Vera, a friend from art school, sees her loneliness and introduces her to her husband's colleagues - friendly Mitya and mysterious Andrey. Soon Galina finds herself torn between the two men.
Two Comrades Were Serving
Set during the last days of the civil war that followed the Russian Revolution. The Crimea Peninsula is the last stronghold of the White Guard, and the Red Army is planning the final assault. The first story line of the movie follows two Red Army soldiers: unlikely friends Nekrasov and Karyakin. The second story line is about a White Guard officer Brusentsov who is devoted to Russia and his cause but sees it being destroyed day by day.
