Excellent film with a gripping story!

Blistering performances.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

after its end, the only strange remains the source of his seduction. sure, it is a Mikhalkov film, the meeting between Mastroianni and Smoktunovsky is a happy event, the favorite of Fellini does an admirable job, the old text of Chekov has new nuances but each new explanation is far to be enough. the secret could be the strange status of story. it seems be well known. it could be a story about yourself. the emotion becomes profound scene by scene. the feelings about poor lead hero are ambiguous more and more. the virtue of film - it presents not only a touching story but an expected one. a film about life, errors, hopes and regrets.confession of an Italian full of authentic Russian states of soul. and that is the key - except Mastroianni, nobody can act his character. except Mikhalkov, nobody can give the air of familiarity to a strange story like that. a seductive film. but the roots of its seduction are so profound presented in its viewer experiences....

for its wise simplicity. for its touching beauty. and for the high Mkhalkov precision to create the details. a film with an impressive cast - Mastroianni is the first violin but not the one - and example of inspired manner to use the Tchekov spirit and the glamor of a century beginning. a film like a puzzle in which each image, performance or scene is charming like a kind of gem, delicate and illustration of art of a master. a special meeting between art of few great actors and an unique director. and the flavor of a Russia who becomes different in contact with Mastroianni - it is not the only meeting , Sunflower is another , but in this case, far by war or Sophia Loren, the story seems be a precious drink in a crystal glass.for me, one of films who, after its end, proofs than it represents one of movies who you search for without know than it exists.

A Russian/Italian co-production sounds like an uneasy marriage of mismatched temperaments, but 'Dark Eyes' is a remarkably cohesive mutual effort offering the best of both worlds: a wonderfully romantic story, a healthy love of laughter and high spirits, and a lingering air of Slavic melancholy. It's being sold as a showcase for the perennial charm of Marcello Mastroianni, but the film has more than just his performance to recommend it. The script, condensed from several tales by Anton Chekhov, has the elegant simplicity of a classic short story, following a charming but buffoonish husband in his pursuit of an attractive young Russian back to her native country, where he discovers a nation of people even crazier than he is. Some of the smaller roles have been drawn for the broadest effect, but under Nikita Mikhalkov's meticulous direction every character emerges as a full blooded human being, with Mastroianni himself offering a sensitive portrait of a man too in love with life to take it seriously. A nagging reservation: the final irony revealed in the epilogue adds one coincidence too many, and comes close to spoiling the already poignant mood. Just pretend it never happened.

Whether this movie is based on, inspired by or just bears a passing resemblance to Chekhov's The Lady With The Little Dog is ultimately academic because what really matters is the movie as it stands, is it good, bad or ho-hum. It's actually rather good if anybody asks you. Sure, there are things that verge on hat of the very oldest kind, like the O'Henryish ending but the film transcends stuff like that easily. It begins with our old friend the Frame narrator buttonholing a passenger on a small cruise ship and laying his life-story on him. The information ladled out by the passenger - despite advancing years he is newly married; he had loved and pursued his wife for years; she in turn was unhappily married and could never love him but finally consented to marry him - over the length of the film is done so cunningly that only the professional film/story analyst will even sense a connection between this and the story told by Marcello Mastroianni, architect manque, married to Miss Gotrocks in the shape of Silvana Mangana, who is seized without warning by a passion for a Russian woman encountered by chance, so much so that he pursues her to her homeland and perseveres in the face of a burocray not unlike that encountered by Melvyn Douglas in HIS attempt to be reunited with Ninotchka, until he is finally able to travel to her small home town. The style is a hybrid of Chekhovian spareness and Visconti opulence but even this seems appropriate for a film determined to charm and seduce the discriminating viewer. Does it succeed? What do you think.