The Long Farewell (1971) is one of the standard introductory films to the oeuvre of Kira Muratova. It’s not an anodyne fact, since the package is contradictory—a melancholy and funny film like Brief Encounters (1967), starring pop icon Vladimir Vysotsky in the lead role, lies in the company of an angry and tonic one, The Asthenic Syndrome (1989) – and her oeuvre has yet to be fully mapped out to this very day. By placing the filmography of Muratova in the hands of a group of cinema specialists and enthusiasts turns her into an object both secret and ubiquitous, which implies rarely playing safe, and stuttering often in front of the perplexity that these films so often display. In this sense, The Long Farewell is exemplary in its sudden speed shifts, which bring about a loss of references, while lyrical vignettes and amorous, à la russe soap operas frequently throw us into the fray without any warming.

Victor Morozov

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Film critic and journalist; writes regularly for Dilema Veche and Scena9. He studied film theory in Grenoble, Paris, Dublin.

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