My Love Mary Pickford

 ((PIONYER MARY PICKFORD))

By CATHY MEILS

(RUSSIAN) A Palma Films release (in Russia) of a Lentelfilm production. (International sales: Palma, Moscow.) Produced by Valery Yevtushenko. Directed by Vladimir Levin. Screenplay, Nina Allahverdova, Yevgeni Grigoriev.
 
Shura ... Olga Yevtushenko
Tamara ... Ksenia Sevostvanova
Varya ... Vera Voronkova
Kolya ... Konstantin Chepurin
Father ...Gennady Matveyev
Mother ... Nadezhda Matushkina
Grandmother ... Maria Vinogradova
 

A workmanlike dramedy about a school kid who dreams of becoming as famous as the Hollywood movie star, "My Love Mary Pickford" is a movie too late for its time -- at least five years too late to work as social protest and about 50 years too late for the acting style practiced by its young lead. Pic has a certain appeal for Central European auds but looks d.o.a. for sales further abroad; it cries out for a child actress with as much natural charm as Nikita Mikhalkov's daughter in "Burnt by the Sun."

Set in the '20s, story focuses on Shura (Olga Yevtushenko), a "Pioneer" (the Communist Party version of the Girl Scouts) who spouts party doctrine and tries to reform bourgeois attitudes in her family. (Dad's a drunk, Mother is overworked, and Granny spends her time praying.) Her tag-along buddy, Tamara (Ksenia Sevostvanova), is an unimaginative, cowardly lump who provides an ever-ready audience for the puffed-up, dictatorial tyke.

But after declaring her politically incorrect ambitions at a public meeting, Shura is branded a counterrevolutionary. The capper is when she wrecks a community building project while chasing her wind-tossed Pickford straw bonnet. Before she hops a train to Moscow, Shura's been mocked and burned in effigy.

A subplot involves a romance between two adult Pioneer leaders that's derailed by allegiance to the party.

Pic is scattered with in-jokes and film refs: The movie starts with a shot of a train arriving (a la Lumiere Bros.), the cameraman recording the building project is called Dziga (referring to the Dziga Vertov classic "Man With a Movie Camera"), and Sochi fest director Mark Rudenstein makes a cameo appearance as Pickford's co-star in a re-created scene from one of her movies. Lensing by Vladimir Klimov is first-rate, and other tech credits are fine.

Camera (color), Vladimir Klimov; editor, Larisa Nesterova; music, Andrei Sigle; production design, Oksana Kazakova; sound, Igor Vigdorchik. Reviewed at Sochi Film Festival, Russia, June 10, 1996. (Also in Prague Film Festival.) Running time: 89 MIN.