Spend New Year's Eve With a Classic
Andrei Myagkov and Barbara Brylska star in Eldar Ryazanov's "The Irony of Fate," which has remained a hit for 20 years.
While Frank Capra's 1946 classic "It's a Wonderful Life" is the must-watch Christmas film in the United States, Russia has its own favorite holiday movie: the bittersweet comedy "Ironiya Sudby, ili s Lyogkim Parom," or "The Irony of Fate, or Have a Good Banya."
Director Eldar Ryazanov's 1975 film has aired on television here every Dec. 31 for more than two decades -- and this year is no different. On New Year's Eve, people across the country will gather to watch, sipping champagne and reciting dialogue they know by heart.
The film has been the subject of unwavering acclaim -- even despite its central joke, a none-too-subtle comment on the lack of imagination of Soviet urban planning. Even in its first few minutes, "The Irony of Fate" is pushing the envelope. In its introductory cartoon sequence, an army of identical apartment buildings march purposefully about, multiplying all the while and eventually blanketing the world in architectural uniformity. Meanwhile, an unseen narrator remarks that in the Soviet period every city had the same buildings and the same streets with the same names: "These days, no matter what city you're in, you feel at home," the narrator says.
"The Irony of Fate" is the story of Muscovite Zhenya (played by Andrei Myagkov), who makes plans to spend New Year's Eve with his fiancee, Galya. They are to meet at 11 p.m., but Zhenya's plans go awry when he rushes off to meet friends at the banya, where he rapidly gets drunk and loses consciousness.
Later, Zhenya's friends get so drunk that none of them can remember which one is supposed to catch a night flight to Leningrad. So they pack off the unconscious Zhenya.
When Zhenya regains consciousness with a colossal headache in the northern capital's airport an hour later, he thinks he's still in Moscow. Reciting his capital-city address for the taxi driver -- the same address exists in Leningrad -- he pulls up to a building identical to his own. The lock on the door is the same and his key fits. Inside, even the mass-produced bed, desk, table and chairs are indistinguishable from his own.
Zhenya falls asleep in what he thinks is his own bed, only to be awakened by the real owner of the apartment, a near hysterical Nadya (played by Polish actress Barbara Brylska) who is shocked to find a strange man who reeks of vodka asleep in her bed. By the time she convinces Zhenya that he is in actually in Leningrad, he has already missed his date with Galya, and Nadya's own fiance, Hippolit (played by Yury Yakovlev), has arrived for the holiday meal, discovered the presence of Zhenya and stormed off in a jealous rage.
In the hours that ensue, a brokenhearted Nadya tries to make the best of New Year's Eve with Zhenya. To background music by pop diva Alla Pugachyova, the two suffer through misunderstandings, changes of heart and drunken revelations -- and end up falling in love in spite of themselves. There are no surprises here, just a pleasant fairytale for the last night of the year. |
