nikapell Review of The Barber of Siberia

The Barber of Siberia (1998)

A story of love, friendship and honor, not a reality quest!

[1/10 · 8 February 2003]

I've seen this movie a lot of times, and loved it every time. Surely it is not very truthful story from the historical point of view. It also isn't very realistic and probably it wasn't made to be one. Who says that every movie nowdays should be? Sometimes you want to see something more fairy-tale like. Though you should remember, this is not one of those happy ones. From mine point of view the main idea of this movie was to show the emotions of youth in those days in Russia. Friendship, love and honor were the virtues that were truly valued. Every one of those emotions were shown in the best possible way. The things I didn't like in that movie, were the overplayed roles of some characters and too long scenes showing the russian passion for drinking(???). But those shouldn't be that big obstacles for not loving everything else. If you didn't like the story of this film, you should watch it at least because of the incredible performance of the russian actor Oleg Menshikov, which dimmes everyone else appearance, even the fabulous Julia Ormond. He plays with such passion that even the fact that he plays much more younger character than himself is not noticeable. I think that everyone who is looking for real emotions on screen, should give this movie a chance, and maybe in the end you will be suprised how much you really enjoyed it.