I Am Twenty

Marlen Khutsiev's film opens with Sergei, twenty years old and back from the army. He starts work at a thermal power station, spends time with his childhood friends Slava and Nikolai, and falls for a woman he sees on a bus. There is almost no plot; the film watches a generation whose fathers died in the war looking for its own values in the streets of Moscow. The scene in which Sergei speaks to his dead father in his mind is the most remembered passage and also the reason for what happened to the film. It was completed under the title Ilyich's Gate, drew Khrushchev's personal fury, was cut to nearly half its length and could only be released, under this title, in 1965. The uncensored version waited until 1988. It shared the jury prize at Venice with a film by Buñuel. Who it's for: viewers who like the Soviet New Wave and generational films built on a city. Who it's not for: anyone wanting plot and a running time under three hours.