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Movies / On DVD / The Vanished Empire
The Vanished Empire

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The Vanished Empire (2009)

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Reviews Counted:12

Fresh:9

Rotten:3

Average Rating:5.9/10

Rated: Not Rated

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Jul 10, 2009 Limited

Synopsis: The film events take place in Moscow in the 1970-s. The plot is based on the classical love triangle: two youths and a girl. They are students of the same institute of higher education, live in a... The film events take place in Moscow in the 1970-s. The plot is based on the classical love triangle: two youths and a girl. They are students of the same institute of higher education, live in a large country without suspecting that soon it will vanish from all the maps of our planet. This film narrates about love, youth, and the country named the Soviet Union. --© Kinoglaz [More]

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov

Director: Karen Shakhnazarov

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Release:

Feb 2, 2010

[DVD Details]
 
 

DVD Features:

  • Region [unknown]
 
 
 
 

Reviews for The Vanished Empire

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1 - 13 (sorted by date)
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Shakhnazarov, who began his film career in the Soviet era and was about the age of his protagonists in '73, brings an authenticity to the material, as well as a certain wistfulness in his excellent re-creation of Brezhnev-era Moscow.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
10/23/09
G. Allen Johnson
G. Allen Johnson
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A nicely turned film about the crushing inevitability of change.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
09/25/09
Robert Abele
Robert Abele
Los Angeles Times
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In the gray old days of Brezhnev and detente, Russian college students shimmy to "Sugar, Sugar" and shell out for black-market Levis, unaware that these are the best days of their lives

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
08/20/09
J. R. Jones
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
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N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
07/16/09
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Evocative period details and persuasive performances lend a poignant sadness to Karen Shakhnazarov's familiar, but well-told, coming-of-age tale.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
07/10/09
Elizabeth Weitzman
Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News
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[Director] Shakhnazarov came of age during the Soviet Union's Communist days and brings firsthand experience to the Brezhnev-era The Vanished Empire.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
07/10/09
V.A. Musetto
V.A. Musetto
New York Post
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Bland look at rebellious teens who experience the last days of the Soviet empire.

Full Review Source: Film Journal International | comment Comment
07/10/09
Daniel Eagan
Daniel Eagan
Film Journal International

In The Vanished Empire, Mr. Shakhnazarov, a prolific and under-recognized Russian filmmaker with a surrealist touch, views the collapse of the Soviet Union as an inevitable conflation of the younger generation’s natural impulse to reject the past.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
07/10/09
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
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A Russian film about a self-absorbed youth who is driven by an insatiable yearning to have whatever he wants.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
07/09/09
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

The moralistic finale feels tacked on to the vivid celebration of Commie teen lust.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
07/08/09
Kevin Lee
Kevin Lee
Time Out New York

The dead-end on-again, off-again courtship between Sergey and Lyuda bores, and their standard adolescent travails take up most of the screen time.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
07/08/09
Vadim Rizov
Vadim Rizov
Village Voice
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Unsentimental, almost antiheroic snapshot of a disaffected lost generation never billboards its end-of-a-civilization vibe, though that vibe does color its bittersweet nostalgia over youth wasted on the young.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
07/07/09
Ronnie Scheib
Ronnie Scheib
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The lost-world aura of the film's clumsy youths provides an inexorable dig into Brezhnev-era diffidence.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
07/03/09
Bill Weber
Bill Weber
Slant Magazine
 
 
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