Since it has become a good tone with IMDb commentators to analyze propaganda in every Soviet movie, I will start by exposing all propaganda in "Moskva slezam ne verit" (Moscow doesn't believe your tears) with a snap of my fingers. This movie's basic idea was to destroy the 'cavalry attack on Moscow' myth, to show to young persons that one can not trick the big city of Moscow. No matter how manipulative or scheming you are, how strongly you are motivated to quickly hit the jackpot, you will be weighed, measured and given what you actually deserve. And this process first will eat out 15 best years of your life, and then you'll find yourself stuck up to your ears with this mega-police, middle aged, with the initial goal even more distant than it was in the beginning. Moscow protects it's dignity of a city, Moscow will give you many lessons, Moscow will take your life slipping through your fingers as you stare in the eyes of this city without noticing years passing by, Moscow is dumb to your tears, Moscow sorts out grain from straw. "Sadovoe kolzo ( O shaped highway around the historical Moscow) became our wedding ring" sing main heroes in the final song. You can not trick life, you can not trick Moscow, without doing a bad trick to yourself. The propagandist message of this was to keep talented youths back to the cities where they were born.

This Oscar winning Russian film from 1979 begins the action in 1958, when we get to know three young women, who have come from the provinces to study in Moscow and are now living in a student's residence. While they are studying, they work in blue collar, factory jobs, but dream of escaping that life by marrying some powerful men. When a professor asks them to take care of his nice apartment while he's traveling, they see this as a perfect opportunity to impersonate women of higher status than they are and woo some eligible man into the apartment. One of the girls woos a famous athlete, another named Katya (who eventually becomes the center of the movie and is played by the beautiful Vera Alentova) gets involved with a cameraman in the then new medium of television. Eventually, Katya gets pregnant from the encounter with him, and when he realizes that she is a factory girl instead of a professor's daughter, decides to have nothing to do with her (he is in part afraid of the rejection of his snobbish mother, and the subtext of this, of course, is that the Soviet Union was far from a classless society). She thinks about aborting her baby, but eventually gives birth to a daughter and decides to raise her alone.The movie then cuts to twenty years later. While her friends have married but remain trapped in a drab, working class life, Katya has remained single but has prospered professionally. She is now a director in a factory (a prestigious job in Soviet times) and lives in a nice apartment with her daughter, who is now a young woman. Despite her professional success, Katya is still looking for love, though she usually ends up in doomed affairs (for instance, when she gets involved with a married man). Eventually, she finds a promising prospect with Gosha, a masculine blue collar worker she finds on the train. But just when the relationship starts to develop, the long forgotten cameraman reappears in her life.One of the interesting things of this movie is to get a glimpse of Soviet life at the late Brezhnev era, a time of relative prosperity… Sometimes the director goes for the easy reaction of the public, and modern audiences might not always approve of some of the cultural mores. But this is an interesting and entertaining film if somewhat overlong (two hours and a half).

Funny title for a Russian soap opera taking place from the 1950s to the 1970s. Three country girls who become friends while living in a dorm together. Katerina is a college student who works in a factory and she watches an apartment for wealthy relatives. She and Lyudmila pretend to be rich kids in order to meet well to do men. Katerina hooks up with Rudolf, a camera man at a TV station and she becomes pregnant by him. He denies paternity and she has a daughter she names Alexandra.Twenty years later, Katerina is in charge of a factory and is still unmarried. She has a lover, an older man who has a wife. Rudolf reappears with a news team to do a report on the factory but doesn't remember Katarina. He eventually meets his daughter Alexandra but nothing is resolved in this Soviet Peyton Place. The mood is cold and so are the characters, and running over two hours, I was not overly impressed with the Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.

Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears is an appealing comedy-drama with much to say about Soviet society from the 1950s to the 1970s. The cast deliver standout performances, and this is the film's greatest strength. The story is about their lives. The city's scenery is often featured, with cinematography that's good for a Soviet drama film. The score, however, is standard fare, but there are a few notable songs. Considering its high entertainment value it's no wonder that Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears became one of the most popular films in the Soviet Union. It even won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980. It's just one of those films where everyone involved in making it contributed to a result that delivers on all fronts. If the acting or the direction was worse then the result could have been another forgettable drama. Soviet filmmakers, however, specialized in drama films. This is because of the restrictions that were put on them by the government. Many good dramas were released during the Soviet period, and Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears is one of the most memorable. I definitely recommend seeing it.