Aboard a ship early in the 20th-century, a middle-aged Italian tells his story of love to a Russian.
Acting
Mastroianni's face does three decades of longing in one look.
Direction
Mikhalkov balances farce and tragedy without whiplash.
Cinematography
Steaming baths and snowy estates — tactile memory as visual.
Director
Nikita Mikhalkov
Marcello Mastroianni
Romano
Marthe Keller
Tina
Elena Safonova
Anna
Pina Cei
La soucera
Vsevolod Larionov
Pavel
Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy
Il Governarore di Sisoiev
Roberto Herlitzka
L'Avvocato
Paolo Baroni
Manilo
Oleg Tabakov
Sua Grazia
Yuri Bogatyryov
Il Maresciallo
Dmitriy Zolotukhin
Konstantin
Silvana Mangano
Elisa
Nino Bignamini
L'acquirente
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mastroianni learned Russian phonetically for his scenes with Safonova; their language barrier became unscripted awkwardness.
The film adapts Chekhov's 'The Lady with the Dog' and other stories, but Mikhalkov relocates the emotional center to Italian masculine failure — a specifically post-war European reading.
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