Winter Journey (2012)
The film portraits a complicated journey thru life, love and hate of a homosexual in Russia. Before an important audition, the opera teacher recommends sleep, walks and Schubert. Feeling lost, desperate and rebellious, Erik does the exact opposite (except for the Schubert bit), spending his nights with a disillusioned older colleague and excessive amounts of vodka. Erik has a boyfriend but a chance encounter with the semi-criminal Lyokha awakens passion of a whole new caliber in him.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
Brilliant and touching
As Good As It Gets
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
The movie is about a truly turbulent and very short lived (two day) relationship between Eric (a wanna-be opera singer, a drinking gay guy in a Russian nameless, backwater town) and Lyosha (a roguish petty homeless criminal in the same city who has little chance to find work in the town industry to soon to die of lung cancer or of skin cancer) who meet through a chain of circumstances and have a truly wonderful chemistry together. The latter is mostly thanks to Pyotr Tkachuk, a Russian actor I have never paid attention to in any episodic roles before, but who reminded me of a young David Bowie. It would be probably in three sentences what the movie is about, but better get it where you can and enjoy a tale of wordless attraction and excellent performances (and no happy end). The movie indeed makes you rewind a few scenes and hold your breathe. It took 3 years for the movie to be available for limited release in/out Russia. I hope you don't miss this gem among countless carbon-copy series about criminals, commissars and early 90s Russian mafia. Trule film festival material and I read it got some recognition but never among ordinary viewers, unfortunately.
Truly brilliant movie. I wish i could go back in time - when i didn't saw it yet- to feel again, the pleasant first time feelings of ''Zimniy put'' The play of Evgeniy Tkachuk is delightfully believable- so natural and professional diving in the role, that you actually believe he IS this character in real life.Brave work of ''Zimniy put'' producers - considering all homophobic situation now days in Russia. Hope the producers - Lubov Lvova and Sergey Taramaevin in future will continue work in this field, they have great pottencial.This is kind of movie that dives in you really deep, and day after day it takes you all, and than - you can't stop thinking about. Only now - 1 month after watching it- I truly get all the story line.