French filmmaker Regis Wargnier's East-West is old-fashioned melodrama, a love-story weepie set against a backdrop of nerve-racking political intrigue. The film is based on real-life tales of Russian exiles who, in the 1940s, returned to Russia from the West, with families in tow, after Stalin promised them amnesty and the chance to live in a revitalized Russia. What they found instead was soul-crushing oppression and no clear way to escape it. In East-West, the plot revolves around a gifted doctor, Alexei Golovine (Oleg Menshikov), his French wife, Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire), and their young son. Crammed into a crowded apartment, under constant surveillance and pressure to conform, the family starts to slowly fall apart. Marie suffers the most, but both she and Alexei take lovers to deaden the pain of their new lives. When a leftist French actress (played by Catherine Deneuve) comes to Russia to perform in a play, Marie sneaks backstage to plead for help. From there, Wargnier and his cast slowly tighten the vise on the viewer's nerves: There's a scene where Marie is watching her young lover compete in a swim meet, with her potential freedom hinging on the outcome. As the camera stays in close-up, Bonnaire's face seamlessly flickers with despair, fear and hope - successively and simultaneously. It's the highlight of a flawless performance, and almost unwatchable in its intensity. By the time the movie ends, having traversed numerous plot twists and character revelations, the viewer is emotionally drained in a bittersweet sort of way.

Submitted by Kay