Synopsis
Autumn Marathon (1979), Georgy Daneliya's bittersweet comedy-drama, is available to watch online on iFILM. Oleg Basilashvili plays Andrei Buzykin — a literary translator and a man constitutionally incapable of saying no to anyone.
He runs two relationships in parallel: his wife Nina (Natalya Gundareva) knows something is wrong but won't say it; his lover Alla (Marina Neyolova) is growing tired of always coming second. A visiting Danish colleague named Bill joins Buzykin for morning jogs, cheerfully unaware he has latched onto a man quietly falling apart. Nobody in this film is a villain. That is the point.
Daneliya watches his protagonist not with mockery but with something closer to pity. Buzykin is not weak-willed so much as incapable of inflicting pain on anyone, including himself — which amounts to the same thing. It hits differently once you are old enough to recognize the trap. Stream Autumn Marathon (1979) online on iFILM.
Starring
Comments 0