By the Bluest of Seas

Ratings & Reviews

Jdsarmientoburgos

A bit... simple compared to other Soviet films of the time. The love triangle was more tedious than charming, as was much of the hammy dialogue and acting. Two stars for the gorgeous ocean photography.

jonijtr

doesn't feel like a Stalin-Soviet produced film at all, it's more like a French Realism-influenced film with a few clunky application of Communism propaganda that almost feels like a parody. but in the end it's still a beautiful transfiguration between silent structuralism and sound movies; stylization and fidelity within the best usage of sea captured on celluloid i've ever seen since A Flor Do Mar

FISCHER

Rarement l'océan n'aura été filmé avec un tel bonheur, dans une véritable fusion organique de l'élément liquide avec son environnement humain et spatial. De plus, sans jamais sombrer dans un prosélytisme pro-soviétique, à la gloire de la patente révolution bolchévique, en filigrane, l'oeuvre distille une intense joie de vivre, fraternelle et communautaire. www.cinefiches.com

Vincent T

beautiful rhythms, cinematography and feelings. (if I'm not mistaken the title is taken from Pushkin's Eugene Onegin)

DVC

A pure and fine story about love and friendship. Wonderful!!!

Irma Vep

Absolutely gorgeous. A movie that defies the supposed boundaries between sound and silent film, drama and comedy, realism and stylization. You find yourself washed up (along with Alyosha and Yusuf) on the coast of the Caspian but also on the shores of memory and desire.

Marc St-Cyr (Death cinéphilia)

Waves... Where the narrative is flat, the « evocative » sea shots did the rest of the job, lol. Nicole Brenez has the best words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ghMxw548w

EdieEmm

You'd expect a movie in which every single character was typified by unaffected innocence to be, at best, pretty annoying... Instead, this playful 'love triangle' story, set in an idealized communist fishing village in Soviet Azerbaijan. turned out to be surprisingly disarming, poignant in contrast to both the reality of Stalinism, and our modern cynicism. Beautifully shot. And the 'intervention' scene was genius.

msmichel

A mostly endearing story of love that finds two shipmates helping at an island farm/fishing village commune after being shipwrecked and both falling in love with the same woman. There is underlying political jargon throughout but it doesn't take away from the pastoral setting and the genuine emotion the story raises. An under sung gem.

Odile~

Preciosa e irrepetible. "Elena Kuzmina, rubísima, humidísima, azulísima, es la Macha de Al borde del mar azul, milagro hecho mujer o mujer hecha milagro en esta película entre todas milagrosa y de la que el último de los grandes críticos, Serge Daney, habló obsesiva e incansablemente hasta el día de su muerte" (J. B. da Costa)

Sonia

Boris Barnet has created his Caspian Sea island as a space of otherness, a compelling natural home, away from the bleak and uncertain realities of Soviet life. There is a sense of watching ‘natural’ uncomplicated people in a natural environment buffeted by wind and sea. This is a seriously moving and under-recognised film.

Stian Gledje Bekkvik

Stunningly beautiful and brilliantly simple film with a refreshing childlike sensibility.

José Neves

Cinematography by Mikhail Kirillov.

Ariel Rowan

peaceful + good message

Aaron G.

Did Boris Barnet, Jean Vigo, and the bunch that made People on a Sunday meet in a cafe somewhere in the early thirties and hatch plans to make films about love and beauty and youth that are open to the future and slight in the deepest way? The whole world was about to be shattered but it doesn't take away from the beauty, openness and joy of the film -- it highlights the different ways things might have gone.

Simona

In only two films I have seen footage of the Caspian sea: About Elly and this one. In both films the Caspian sea was enraged and violent. However, this movie's footage is the best I have ever seen in all my life. Better than the real sea, too.

Lorna Singh

Lovely scenery,appealing characters and music make one overlook the thin story and propaganda. A bit like a Hollywood 'boy meets girl " etc movie from the 40's and 50's.

Karthik

It is the melancholy nonnarrative film beneath the story with its evocations of an eternal return (the Qohelethic 'nothing new under the sun' tempered with an acceptance of the vagaries of life) and that astonishing footage of the sea (some of the best I have seen) that makes this such an essential film for me...

Matt Parks

Intimations of _La Nouvelle Vague_ . . . about 25 years too early.

Mighty Quinn

An enjoyable, if slight movie from Boris Barnet. The characters aren't as enduring or memorable as the ones in his previous film, "Outskirts", and the love story didn't seem very developed. Still, both films are equally impressive cinematography-wise.

o_oo

If Lubitsch would've been born in revolutionary Russia.

Peter

Sun, sea, passion, faith, love, adventure,comedy, hope and perhaps, most of all, a tender innocence. The romance of being young. For romantics of all ages everywhere.

joaoKG

I've seen it written more than once that this was shot in colour, but it seems no one's seen it except in black and white. Any clues on this?