Absolutely brilliant

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The love and lust of an adolescent boy. The innocence, confusion and fantasies in a world so complex that he choose his imagination to live while the two woman he fell in love with is dealing with their own confusions, mistakes and tragedy while loving him back. I am falling in love with Aleksandr Petrov's style of animation and filmmaking, one of the most beautiful films I have seen in recent times.

it is a great travel. across a feeling. across the images of a lost Russia. it is an admirable work. for the details, for the dialogue and for the magnificent art to reflect states out of words. it is a masterpiece and this is not a real surprise from Aleksandr Petrov. the special thing is the emotions after the end of film. as a ball of tenderness and seductive secret and childish - clear feeling. from a long time ago, for me, the films of Petrov are a sort of gifts of the Christmas Eve. but my love is more. maybe because I am East European. or for Slavic origins. it is a form of rehabilitation of a Golden Age using the perfect tools. and the result is more, real more than you expect.

This is an animated short by Aleksandr Petrov using the technique of paint-on-glass, where the image is painted directly on sheets of glass. There will be spoilers ahead:This is an adaptation of a work by Ivan Shmelyov, A Love Story. It's the story of a 16 year old boy, the son of a wealthy family, studying for his exams and wrestling with puppy love, which has hit him twice at once, first with Pasha, the family's maid and then the mysterious woman living nearby.Though his interest in the maid is largely returned, his interest in the other older woman has a more uneven pattern to it. Both loves are ultimately doomed and not just because he's 16. Sons of wealth marrying the family maid was all but unheard of at that time and place, for one thing. As for his other interest, she has a past and a reputation, along with a complicated present.The plot is interesting, but unless you can find something with subtitles or speak Russian, the plot is hard to follow. Subtitled copies can be found, but the animation itself is so breathtaking that one can appreciate this for the visuals alone. I've been fortunate enough to see this with English subtitles.There's angst, tragedy, laughter and joy throughout and it's very well crafted. This can be seen online and is most highly recommended.

Admittedly I was only able to see it on YouTube, so not the best format.However, I was still very impressed at it's beauty. The icons painted on the wall in the Russian church shown during a service were one of my favorite parts. It's about a young boy in czarist Russia and his pure idealization and fantasizing about love. He is drawn to a sophisticated older woman but also feels something for his family's maid.As with most foreign films, the subtitles can not do it justice. You miss a lot of the actual dialogue. The jokes, the rhyming language, the use of informal/formal forms of address that we don't have in English. Without knowing the culture there is a lot more than falls through. It also helps to have read Russian novels & short stories - you'd know that there's always tragedy and loss involved somehow.So if you don't speak Russian or know the culture, just understand that there's a lot of context and subtext that you're missing and allow for that - but I think you'll still enjoy it for the pure visual beauty of the piece alone.