The Long Farewell
The Long Farewell
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1h 34m
Directed by Kira Muratova • 1971 • Ukraine, Soviet Union
Starring Zinaida Sharko, Oleg Vladimirsky, Yuri Kayurov
With its daring formalist freedom, Kira Muratova’s pointillist family portrait so perplexed and unnerved Soviet censors that it effectively halted her career for years afterward. A kind of psychological breakup movie, THE LONG FAREWELL traces the growing rift that develops between an emotionally impulsive single mother (stage legend Zinaida Sharko, transcendent in one of her first film roles) and her increasingly resentful teenage son (Oleg Vladimirsky), who upends her world when he announces that he wishes to live with his faraway father. The seemingly simple premise is rendered anything but by Muratova’s dreamy, drifting style, with off-kilter framing, editing, and dialogue continually pushing cinema’s aesthetic and expressive boundaries outward.
Up Next in The Long Farewell
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Elena Gorfinkel on THE LONG FAREWELL
In this 2023 interview, scholar Elena Gorfinkel tells the story behind the making of THE LONG FAREWELL, as well as the ensuing controversy that sidelined Kira Muratova’s directorial career for several decades.
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Isabel Jacobs on THE LONG FAREWELL
Scholar Isabel Jacobs offers a thematic and stylistic analysis of THE LONG FAREWELL in this 2023 interview.
