A Soviet meat grinder romance that'll mince your heart.
USSR, 1979. A guy meets a girl at a party. The girl is a hairdresser, the guy helps his father at a meat-processing plant. Soon a son is born and the couple become a family. The beginning of 2004. The boy has grown into a lyric poet but, nevertheless, follows the father’s footsteps and works at the meat-processing plant. A reflection on happiness gets him into a dead end, from which, apparently, there is no way out. But here in his life enters the accountant Liubov, or Love, and there comes the time of the wedding…
Cinematography
Crushing Soviet greyness that somehow looks beautiful.
Production
That meat plant will haunt your nostrils.
Writing
A woman literally named Love saves a poet. Subtle.
Director
Denis Vilenkin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title 'Splendore' is deeply ironic — there's zero splendor here, only the crushing beauty of Soviet mundane hell.
1979-2004 spans the late Soviet era to Putin's Russia, making the generational trap feel politically pointed.
RU
