I love this movie so much

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

In "Autumn Marathon" aka Osenniy Marafon, a romantic Russian comedy about a man who struggles with trying to make his wife, his mistress, his friends, and himself happy. Oleg Basilashvili aka. Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin is a literary translator who is cursed by irresolution and decency. Andrey has an affair which eventually leads both his mistress and his wife to leave him because they are tired of being unhappy. Although this movie was a little to long in telling this romantic comedy, the plot of the story is describe in great depth. The reader is able to follow along with the time line and follow what is happening between a man and these two women throughout the entire plot. Lastly, this comedy brings up vital issues about an individuals choices and the value of an individuals life. Life is very precious but at any moment, one can have everything and at another it can disappear with in a matter of minutes.

Centered on a well-meaning Professor, Autumn Marathon shows the chaos that ensues when one cannot learn to say no to himself, and therefore to others around him. Professor Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin is manipulated by everyone around him, especially the women in his life. His mistress Alla is constantly pestering him about having children with her and leaving his wife, Nina. Nina is clearly well-aware that her husband is lying to her and most likely cheating, so she manipulates Andrey into feeling sorry for her by moping around the house and saying that no one needs her. His fellow writer Varvara uses him and adds to his web of lies as he helps her translate, which will cause her to take his place with the publishers. Basically, the whole film is sometimes painful to watch because Andrey's lies to his wife and mistress become more complicated with each scene. At the end, he seems to be peaceful when both women finally leave him, but at practically the same moment, his mistress calls and his wife comes back home. In the final scene of this dizzying chaos, Andrey hasn't learned his lesson and lies to his mistress that his wife has left and lies to his wife that he left his mistress. In my Russian Film class, we discussed how Andrey really isn't that bad of a guy and just wants to please everyone, but as a grown man, he should know better. Throughout the film, it is clear that his lies hurt everyone around him and make his current life almost impossible to keep up with. I wish the film would have ended with him starting anew, but alas, this ending is much more in line with the reality that the older we get, the less likely we are to change.

As a student of Russian language and culture, one of my biggest pet peeves is the way people who lived during the Cold War talk about the Russian people and about Russian society. Most people have terrible misconceptions about Russian Society. One of the most interesting epochs of Soviet History is the Brezhnev Era. Some of Russia's most celebrated dramedies such as Rjazanov's "The Irony of Fate" were coming out at this time. If you want to get a small taste of what Russian Society was like (although it is impossible to fully understand what you don't live through), this is one of the best films you can find. In addition, it's quite witty and even belly laugh funny at times Andrei's neighbor and the Danish professor go mushroom picking. If you enjoy films, which perhaps don't focus on plot, but rather conduct deep character analyzes by portraying a series of events and their effect on the characters, then this is the film for you. It is actually slightly reminiscent of American comedies by Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne. ABSOL'JUTNO STOIT VAM SMOTRET' I KAK MOZHNO BYSTREE!!! NU CHTO ZH SIDITE-TO.. BEGOM!

This film takes a while to get going, but once it does it's a pretty good film. I strongly recommend it to those who'd like to see how ordinary people lived in the USSR in the early 80s.The film takes place in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), which is Russia's second largest city after Moscow. The cinematographer is this film is a very good one, and there are a lot of great compositional shots... I'd say that the cinematography in this film seems more western than a lot of other Russian films. The editing work and script, by contrast, is not always so good, especially in the beginning of the film (for the first 1/2 hour I didn't even know who the main character was!). The actors are all very believable though, and by the end of the film I pretty much understood everything that I was so confused about at first.This film isn't a traditional comedy; it's more of a sad morality tale told with some humour to keep it from becoming depressing. If you liked "Moscow Does not Believe in Tears", you may like this movie as well. Interesting to note is that the director was female (EDIT: Sorry folks, he's male. I assumed that the director was Russian, in which case a last name ending with "a" would signify a female).Overall, I'd give it a 7/10. Westerners may want to watch this if they want to see a "typical" Soviet movie from the last half of the century. Most critics only notice the more "avant garde" movies of Soviet cinema like "Andrei Rublev" or "Battleship Potemkin", and that becomes people's impression of what Russian movies are like. This is for those who want to see a simple movie about a man's life that can be pretty much universal anywhere; there is no over-the-top patriotism or strangeness in this film and it's a good film regardless. BTW, the Russian voices are better than the English voice-overs.