Gene Siskel Film Center
164 N State St
312.846.2600
This event has passed.
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Still from The Vanished Empire, Courtesy Kino International
- When
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Wednesday Aug 26, 2009 (6pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$10
- Links
A love triangle between three teenagers that culminates in a coming-of-age tale might sound about as compelling as watching Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Aniston, and Hugh Grant play spin the bottle. But in Karen Shakhnazarov's The Vanished Empire, our lovestruck teens exist in 1970s Soviet Russia, when the nation begins losing its power grasp and communism's heart becomes fainter and colder. The characters fall in and out of love amidst a lifestyle of getting inebriated on beer, weed, and rock 'n roll — all signs of the nation's cultural slippage. Nostalgic for a Russia we never saw in cinema, these characters are a far cry from the Soviets portrayed in Americanized farces like Red Dawn.
