***** Daily News (New York), October 25, 1996, Friday
HEADLINE: SOVIET 'SISTER'HOOD EIGHT FILMS THAT COULDN'T HAPPEN HERE
BYLINE: BY DAVE KEHR
SISTERS: FILMS BY RUSSIAN WOMEN. An eight-film retrospective at the Walter Reade Theater, today through Thursday.
AS REPRESSIVE AS THE Soviet system was, it's important to remember that the state-supported film industry of the USSR yielded a large body of work, from Eisenstein to Tarkovsky, that no U.S. producer would have entertained for an instant.
It's a point made again by "Sisters: Films of Russian Women," an eight-film retrospective assembled by the enterprising independent distributor Wendy Lydell, which opens today at the Walter Reade Theater before embarking on a national tour.
The program includes two works by the gifted Kira Muratova, the romantic fantasy "Brief Encounters" (tomorrow and Wednesday at 8:15 p.m.) and the bitterly satiric survey of Soviet life "The Asthenic Syndrome" (Thursday at 2, 6, and 8:50).
Larissa Sheptiko, who died in a car crash at the age of 40, will be represented by her 1966 "Wings," about a former female bomber pilot reduced to teaching school in middle age (Sunday at 4 and 8:15; Wednesday at 2 and 6:15), and her superb final film, "The Ascent," (Sunday at 6 and Tuesday at 4), a World War II story with graceful political and spiritual overtones.
Muratova and Sheptiko's widower, director Elem Klimov, will participate in a seminar tomorrow at 4, also at the Reade. For a schedule, call (212) 875-5600.
GRAPHIC: FINAL EFFORT: A scene from Larissa Sheptiko's "The Ascent" *****