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I Am Twenty
I Am Twenty
8.6
/10
963 Ratings

I AM TWENTY

Мне двадцать лет

Directed by Marlen Khutsiev
Soviet Union, 1965
Drama

Synopsis

Three lifelong friends, whose fathers have been killed in the war, return to Moscow after their military service where they see their aspirations juxtaposed against everyday life in 1960s Soviet Union. They seek pleasure and purpose in Moscow’s counterculture of jazz, folk music, and poetry.

Synopsis

Three lifelong friends, whose fathers have been killed in the war, return to Moscow after their military service where they see their aspirations juxtaposed against everyday life in 1960s Soviet Union. They seek pleasure and purpose in Moscow’s counterculture of jazz, folk music, and poetry.

Our take

Brought under scrutiny after Ilych’s Gate (labelled “morally sick” by Khrushchev!), the great Soviet filmmaker Marlen Khutsiyev drastically re-edited this generational portrait into I Am Twenty. Reminiscent of the French New Wave, it captured the angst and anxiety of this “Khrushchev Thaw.”