Korotkie vstrechi
Director: Kira Muratova
Writer: Kira Muratova, Leonid Zhukhovitsky
Cast: Nina Ruslanova, Vladimir Vysotskiy, Kira Muratova, Lidiya Bazilskaya
Seen on: 29.1.2025

Plot:
Public official Valentina Ivanovna (Kira Muratova) is trying to prepare her speech for the upcoming Agrarian Congress. But her thoughts wander to her husband Maxim (Vladimir Vysotskiy) who travels a lot for his work as a geologist and was due back a while ago. As Valentina is overwhelmed with her own work, she tries to hire a housekeeper. Nadia (Nina Ruslanova) has come to her for the job. Or rather, Nadia, too, is waiting for Maxim whom she fell in love with on his last work trip.

Brief Encounters is a beautiful film that says a lot with very little – few characters, few set-pieces, probably a small budget. Excellent character work and storytelling make this movie as vibrant as when it was made 60 years ago.

This is the first of Muratova’s films I have seen, and hopefully I will see more of them because it really speaks to her handiwork as director, writer and actor. In all three functions, she manages to bring simply fantastic characters to life who are very different and still have so much to say to each other. We get a distinct idea of the relationships between all three of them and can watch them grow.

Ruslanova and Vysotskiy are well-matched with Muratova herself. Vysotskiy’s Maxim is just the right amount of charming: sexy and flirtatious without being slimy. You get why both Valentina and Nadia would fall for him, despite his tendency to make himself unavailable. Ruslanova’s Nadia might be a bite naive in her hope for Maxim, but she is quick to see her mistake and to reorient herself. It’s a good balance to strike in a character, especially since more often than not positivity or naivité are conflated with not knowing or understanding any better.

As hot as Maxim is, and as much as he sets certain things in motion with his actions, it’s the slowly developing relationship between Nadia and Valentina that is really at the heart of the film. As they start to get closer, to understand each other better, it is surprisingly Valentina who learns a lot from Nadia (and not so much the other way round). In this part, the film also includes a lot of sociopolitical commentary, which is always a bonus in my book.

The film finally leaves the reins in Nadia’s hands when she makes the decision on how this three-way constellation could play out. As the least powerful player in the threesome, this is yet another interesting choice by Muratova that I applaud and that make her such an excellent filmmaker.

Summarizing: really good.