East-West
East-West ★★ Est-Ouest 1999 (PG-13)
In 1946, Stalin offered amnesty to any Russians who left the country after the 1917 revolution. But he executed or imprisoned many of the homesick expatriates and others found their gray motherland hard to bear (and impossible to leave). Russian doctor Alexei Golovin (Menshikov) bows to circumstances while his marriage to French wife Marie (Bonnaire) becomes increasingly strained. Marie befriends a champion swimmer, Sasha (Bodrov), with the hopes that they can both escape but things don't go as planned. Old-fashioned storytelling hampers the drama and the story (which leaps ahead months and years) becomes confused. French and Russian with subtitles. 125m/C VHS, DVD . FR Sandrine Bonnaire, Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov Jr., Catherine Deneuve, Tatiana Dogileva; D: Regis Wargnier; W: Regis Wargnier, Sergei Bodrov, Rustam Ibragimbekov, Louis Gardel; C: Laurent Dailland; M: Patrick Doyle.