Strange And Wonderful
"Moscow On The Hudson" is a 1980s version of "The Wizard Of Oz." If you are an American watching it, there is no place like home.Vladimir Ivanoff (Robin Williams) is a saxophonist with a Russian circus in the days of the bad old Soviet Union. Tired of waiting in line for toilet paper and bribing a snooping KGB agent (Saveli Kramarov) with shoes that won't fit him anyway, Vlad has a catharsis somewhere between Estee Lauder and Pierre Cardin in a Manhattan Bloomie's and decides to defect. America means freedom, but will it mean happiness, too?
"Have you ever felt like just not talking?" asks Vlad's new girlfriend Lucia (Maria Conchita Alonso).
"In Russia that's permanent way of life," answers Vlad.
"Moscow On The Hudson" is another of those superlative Paul Mazursky films that was a hit in its day and has been ignored since. Mazursky's films play off the contrast between the fantastic and everyday reality. The early scenes, of Vlad in Moscow, feature a chilly, brittle environment of little humor, with Williams scoring points not for being a cut-up but for being so muted and beaten-down. It's so gray it feels at times like a Bergman film, with welcome clownish notes struck not by Williams but Elya Baskin as his friend whose dream becomes Vlad's reality.
Then we get the trip to New York, a wondrous place where "you can do anything in this country if you want" but "everybody I meet is from somewhere else." A suddenly vibrant color scheme is married to a sometimes goofy sense of humor, yet a sense of menace and despair hangs over all. There are goofy scenes, moments of humor that don't quite work, yet Williams' performance remains balanced and straightforwardly character-driven throughout. No shtick here.
Most of the time, the film is too busy celebrating the idea of America as the land of immigrants. Mazursky isn't making "Yankee Doodle Dandy" here. He may be celebrating the United States, but not blindly. Our first shot of New York is of Abraham Lincoln, on a billboard wearing over-sized earphones with the legend: "Not all stereophones are created equal." Not all people, either. The black family who adopts Vlad early on makes do with a breakfast of Cocoa Puffs and no work in sight.
But Mazursky keeps things merry, with an eye toward opportunity and strength through diversity. Even when he leans too far in search of a shot, it still brings a chill, like when group of immigrants recite their oath of American allegiance or an old Asian guy lifts a sparkler up to the Empire State Building in celebration of the Fourth of July.
It was easy to love America in films of the 1940s and 1950s, but by 1984 you needed to work a little harder at it. "Moscow On The Hudson" doesn't soft-soap Vladimir's struggle, or sell it as a political act ("I'm not political" are the first words out of his mouth after his defection is made clear). But it celebrates the idea of America with a vibrancy and courage few films have shown since, and more interestingly, does so from what Roger Ebert noted was a liberal point of view. Liberal, but with a strong capitalist touch, back in the day when the two ideas were still compatible.
Maybe they still are. You can still watch this on Amazon.com, can't you?
score 8/10
slokes 8 April 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2410813/35213
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