Herald rating: * * *
Running time: 121 mins
Rental: Today
Review: Ewan McDonald
June 1946: Stalin seduces Russian emigrants living in the West, offering them amnesty, a Soviet passport and the chance to participate in the post-war reconstruction of the USSR. Alexei Golovine (Oleg Menchikov), a doctor living in France, decides to return
with his wife, Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire) and young family.
Stalin's welcome is not what they expect. Many fellow travellers are executed on the spot or sent to labour camps. Alexei and his family are sent to Kiev because the Soviet authorities realise they can parade him as a model returnee.
The couple live in a boarding-house where thir neighbours suspect Marie could be a spy because she speaks French. Marie, asked to share spartan facilities in the name of the state, isn't a good sport about it. She does not see that her behaviour is suicidal in Stalin's nation. When a famous left-wing French actress, Gabrielle (Catherine Deneuve), arrives in town, she is made aware of the couple's situation and tries to help them out.
East-West sprawls like the steppes, rouses like Tchaikov-sky's 1812 but lacks a Tolstoy in the script department.
