New East Symposium
The Tender Age
(2000) RussiaDirected by Sergei Solov'evWritten by Dmitrii Solov'ev and Sergei Solov'ev. Cinematography by Pavel Lebeshev. With Dmitrii Solov'ev, Elena Damaeva, Nikolai Chindiaikin, Kirill Lavrov, Liudmila Savel'eva, Sergei Garmash, Ol'ga Sidorova, Irina Grigor'eva, Valentin Gaft, Andrei Panin. |
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In his most recent film, The Tender Age, which premiered at the Pushkin House in Moscow on February 14 of this year, director Sergei Solov'ev continues his exploration of the theme of youth. The director's son plays the main role in this episodic, bitingly humorous portrayal of the eclectic tastes of the young or "lost" generation in contemporary, "postmodern" (Perrestroika/post-Soviet) Russia. Although Aleksandr Kondukov of KinoIzm writes in his article entitled "Dying of Tenderness" that the film "bores into the viewer" turning him or her into a "weak-willed, cynical impotent," the film has thus far been well received by Russian audiences, receiving high ratings from both critics and moviegoers. |
Sergei Aleksandrovich Solov'ev was born 25 August 1944 in Kem', Karelia province. He graduated from VGIK in 1969. He was named as an honored artist by the Soveit government in 1979, and now works as a scriptwriter, director, and, occasionally, as an actor. In an interview with Maksim markov of Rosnews, the director himself explains his attraction to the theme of the young generation by referring to the writings of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. He says: I sincerely feel that the best and most important years of a human life are between the ages of, say, twleve to twenty-five. It is at that moment when a person is fully formulated as an individual. At that moment the same energy of resistance to the world that Tolstoy identified as the highest form of energy begins to work—the energy that comes when a person deals with the universe and with God. Selected Director Filmography:
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