A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
Acting
Kinski's ethereal detachment drives everyone mad.
Cinematography
Golden-hour nostalgia that curdles into claustrophobia.
Director
Andrei Konchalovsky
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Konchalovsky made this fresh off defecting from USSR; the American small-town setting was his outsider's fever dream of capitalist freedom curdled into obsession.
The film bombed because audiences expected erotica and got a brutal critique of male gaze—every man projects onto Maria while she remains unknowable, which infuriated 1984 viewers.
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