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Amazon.co.uk Review
Much criticised on its first appearance as spectacle without affect, Nikita Mikhalkov's The Barber of Siberia is a fascinating, loopy mess worth seeing for its large-scale set pieces and good central performances. The Barber of Siberia was the most expensive film ever made in Russia, with its epic sweeps of landscape and scenes of disorder and drunkenness that remind us what lurked under the superficial structures of late-Tsarist life. Jane Callaghan (Julia Ormond) is an adventurer hired to smooth the way for McCracken (Richard Harris), inventor of a vast tree-felling machine. She blunders around a world of aristocratic influence and intrigue, having become so used to cunning and deceit that she has forgotten she has a heart. Andrei (Oleg Menshikov) is the military cadet whom she meets on the train going east, an aesthete and chancer whose love for her in the face of all the her good sense finally becomes tragic. Menshikov is convincing as lover, buffoon and tragic hero. --Roz Kaveney
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), Russian ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Love blooms amidst the backdrop of Czarist Russia in Nikita Mikhalkov's The Barber of Siberia. Opening in 1905, a woman writes a letter to a young man in military school, who is currently being punished for refusing to say that Mozart is a bad composer. She has an important story to tell him, and our story flashes back 20 years to Russia, where American Jane Calllahan (Julia Ormond), is traveling to Moscow. Jane's father, Douglas McCracken (Richard Harris), is trying to perfect a machine that will harvest trees from the vast Siberian forests. Douglas, however, hopes Jane can charm Gen. Radlov (Alexei Petrenko), the head of a Russian military academy, into arranging the financing that will enable him to complete his work on the harvester. En route, Jane meets a friendly Russian soldier, Andrei Tolstoy (Oleg Menshikov), and the two soon fall in love. Radlov is also fond of Jane, enough so that he's asked her to marry him; when it becomes evident she'd rather be with Tolstoy, he finds himself shipped off to Siberia after allegedly attacking a grand duke. Merging romance, costume drama and slapstick comedy, The Barber of Siberia was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival, ...Barber of Siberia (1998) ( Sibirskiy Tsiryulnik )
SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Cannes Film Festival, Moscow International Film Festival, ...Barber of Siberia (1998) ( Sibirskiy Tsiryulnik )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
From the very beginning I was totally absorbed in this spectacular film, and the time seemed to go by so quickly as one brilliant scene followed another. There were moments of breathtaking splendour - the dazzling ballrooms and the colourful Russian fair - and so many exquisite details that it is a film to be watched over and over again.
Julia Ormond and Alexey Petrenko were so convincing, and there was truly a sense of stepping into another place and time. The film also seemed to capture the unique Russian humour - I laughed aloud several times - as well the exhilatating moment when Tsar Alexander III gallops across the courtyard with his young son, Nicholas, in front of him. It really brought Imperial Russia alive again!
Most Beautiful Princess
Julia Ormond and Alexey Petrenko were so convincing, and there was truly a sense of stepping into another place and time. The film also seemed to capture the unique Russian humour - I laughed aloud several times - as well the exhilatating moment when Tsar Alexander III gallops across the courtyard with his young son, Nicholas, in front of him. It really brought Imperial Russia alive again!
Most Beautiful Princess
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
Any way: it shows the true Russia, the viewer can enjoy the flavour of the pre-Revolutionary Russia with it’s luxury and poverty, nobleness and cruelty, tradition and culture.
If you’ve liked Dr Zhivago, this film is for you! But I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece though:-).
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a long, unevenly directed story which really wants to be an epic romance and almost, but not quite succeeds. It is undoubtedly beautiful. The scenery both in Moscow and also in the scenes in Siberia is a suitably breathtaking stage for a tragic story of romance set against turn of the Century Russia. Julia Ormond is also ravishing here, and her performance underpins the success of the movie. Her Russian counterpart, the young Russian cadet Tolstoy (no relation to the author, as he frequently has to explain) with whom she falls in love when he stumbles into her train compartment, played by Oleg Menshikov, is less successful. His performance lurches somewhat heavy handedly from slapstick clown to would be troubled young man with deep feelings.
Richard Harris is wasted and gives an altogether over the top performance as the inventor of the titular machine - a steam driven contraption for chopping down the trees of Siberia, which he nicknames the barber of Siberia. The would be clever part is that Tolstoy plays the barber of Seville in the officers school performance. Robert Hrdy even crops up unexpectedly in one scene as an English language instructor.
The direction goes to lengths in certain scenes to come across as epic and is often beautifully photographed and set up - to the point where it can feel TOO staged - as in the scene on the platform where the cadets looking for their colleague search for him in such a way as their search becomes a dance for the camera. However the overall effect is pleasing enough as long as you can swallow the stageiness, mixed as it is with some truly un-stage-like milieus of Moscow and Siberia.
The dual language here works well. This does not feel like some euro film with too many cooks spoiling the broth - it is clearly a filmmakers vision (Nikita Mikhalkov), where English speaking actors speak English speaking roles and Russian actors the Russian roles, successfully giving the movie crossover appeal from the normal arthouse crowd. In particular, it is a pleasure to see a movie showing this part of history showing the Russians of the time who supported the Tsar as patriots, and the officer cadre as being a chivalrous life.
In summary I would have to say this IS a beautiful movie, worth watching - Julia Ormond is terrific, the music score is suitably melancholic, the scenery fantastic, and the story interesting - if a tad futile come the end. Worth the journey, if not the destination!
Richard Harris is wasted and gives an altogether over the top performance as the inventor of the titular machine - a steam driven contraption for chopping down the trees of Siberia, which he nicknames the barber of Siberia. The would be clever part is that Tolstoy plays the barber of Seville in the officers school performance. Robert Hrdy even crops up unexpectedly in one scene as an English language instructor.
The direction goes to lengths in certain scenes to come across as epic and is often beautifully photographed and set up - to the point where it can feel TOO staged - as in the scene on the platform where the cadets looking for their colleague search for him in such a way as their search becomes a dance for the camera. However the overall effect is pleasing enough as long as you can swallow the stageiness, mixed as it is with some truly un-stage-like milieus of Moscow and Siberia.
The dual language here works well. This does not feel like some euro film with too many cooks spoiling the broth - it is clearly a filmmakers vision (Nikita Mikhalkov), where English speaking actors speak English speaking roles and Russian actors the Russian roles, successfully giving the movie crossover appeal from the normal arthouse crowd. In particular, it is a pleasure to see a movie showing this part of history showing the Russians of the time who supported the Tsar as patriots, and the officer cadre as being a chivalrous life.
In summary I would have to say this IS a beautiful movie, worth watching - Julia Ormond is terrific, the music score is suitably melancholic, the scenery fantastic, and the story interesting - if a tad futile come the end. Worth the journey, if not the destination!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A film you can not foget
Barber of Siberia remains one of Mihalkov's masterpieces. I saw this movie on TV around Christmas and the story (and interpretation, as well) was so touchy that I said that this... Read more
Published 1 month ago by B. Stefan
Circus humour
For anyone with an adult sense of humour The Barber of Siberia is painful to watch.
Bernard Shaw said that if a painting is liked by more than 10% of people, it should be... Read more
Bernard Shaw said that if a painting is liked by more than 10% of people, it should be... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Good book
Barber of Siberia dvd
A great film. The whole story works very well with its setting. And the vodka slips down very well, for anyone who has also toasted at parties in Russia and the FSU, this scene... Read more
Published on 14 April 2010 by C. J. Mackay
Don't Bother
I found the film wooden, poor in production values and boreing. The Dual Layer single sided disc, did as stated on the box, triggered pauses in the Video. Read more
Published on 8 May 2009 by Mr. W. A. Nuttall
Disappointing
I normally love costume dramas and historical masterpieces, as this has been described, but I got very bored with it half way through, and didnt like over-acted style. Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2009 by Heather
GREAT RUSSIAN CINEMA
BARBER OF SIBERIA is a freat film, reflecting very much of the Russian soul. Oleg Menshikov does a brilliant acting job in this one - as usual. Read more
Published on 26 Dec 2008 by Sick-o
What a waste
Thought it would at least worth paying for it. Actors are not alive and shabby style. Dont watch it, save yourself a time for better things
Published on 5 Dec 2008 by D. Giediminas
Flawed but must be seen
A beautiful film, visually, with Mikhalkov conjuring up 19th century Moscow brilliantly. Oleg Menshikov flirts with self-parody at times (Richard Harris goes way overboard, alas) -... Read more
Published on 15 July 2007 by E. Baumgartner
View from Russian point of view
One of the best films I have seen for the last few years. It makes me feel.
Published on 7 Oct 2005 by Makarova Svitlana
breathtaking
This is one of the best movies I've ever watched; it's a breathtaking, heartbraking, masterpiece.
It got me mesmorised from the minute I started watching it; the light sense of... Read more
Published on 18 May 2004
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