Torrents of Spring (1989)

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 4-JAN-2005
Media Type: DVD Product Description

wrongly advertised DVD

I am not reviewing the DVD of the Torrents of spring with Timothy Hutton and Nastassja Kinsky as it is not the production that I believed I was buying. The details on your websight beside the picture on the DVD refer to a production with Charles Housten, Harry H Corbett, Sandra Dorne and penelope horner. If indeed there is a Dvd of the Charles housten Production I would be glad to have it. AT the least Amazon should rectify their mistake. February 19, 2008

A horrible adaptation that is as bad as a film can be!

Any time you take an Italian producer,a Polish director,a Czech film crew,French funding and put in American,Italian and Russian actors,something definitely gets lost in the translation! This film is an absolute embarassment in film making,staging,set design,sound quality and acting.The fact that so much of it has been dubbed and that the original Russian novel was translated into a French screenplay and then mutated into English speaks volumes about this ill-conceived mess.Do not waste your money Period Piece lovers.This one is a mess! November 25, 2007

Visual and audio beauty, in a sentimental dream of 19th century Europe

TORRENTS OF SPRING, unfortunately, has perhaps not been
marketed in the ideal manner, for the majority of the
public, because it suggests a narrowly focused film about
a passionate relationship between 2 nobles, the lady
played by Nastassja Kinski, and the man by Timothy Hutton.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. This
movie is not narrowly focused on a passion between a man
and a woman. It tells a story that entertains a lot more,
immensely more, from many its many other aspects, that
were crafted into the motion picture. And these other
aspects are what makes this film easily surpass the
commercial, cheap movies, too often manufactured these
days.

It will help, if the viewer can relate to a sentimental
story, enjoys the enormous "eye-candy" of the lifestyle of
nobles (at least as we would have us believe) in the 17th,
18th and 19th centuries in Europe. There's tremendous
filming of historical monuments, castles, the typically
stone-laid streets of cities in France, Portugal, Spain,
Germany, Italy. It really takes the viewer back in time,
in an incredible way, 300 years. In this way, this picture
has an outstanding dream-like quality, for the viewer,
surreal, as well, at times. There are many outstanding,
luxurious, opulent clothes, filming locations (e.g. the
theater, where the two assist a piece) that are
interesting in themselves to those who are not habituals
of those environments. The horse and carriage is the means
of transportation, something no longer seen since 100
years now, in modern civilization.

Next, if the visual beauty of this film is not enough to
satisfy the viewer, recurring over 90 mins (from the
elements previously mentioned), there are the audio
aspects to consider. The music is varied in styles, but
extremely serious, convincing, historical and credible in
its choices, and in the way that it is used in the
picture, such as in the case of the gypsy wedding, the
Slavic folk dances, the chamber pieces that are more
Germanic in nature, etc.

Perhaps the merit of the actors in this movie, is their
moderation of dialogue, and their subtlety. Clearly, the
director understood this movie, was not intellectual in
nature, not at all. It was sentimental, visual, auditive.
Excess talk would distract, and be redundant to the
message conveyed to the spectator, which is to bring forth
a "dream" of times gone by, a utopia perhaps, of what
constituted the life of nobility and / or monarchy.

Kudos to Nastassja Kinski, who not only is effective in
her subtle manner of acting, but she brings forth, to the
screen, the pleasure, a certain thrill of "taking part"
in those scenes, as far as I could tell.
February 15, 2007

Absolutely recommendable!

Those who haven't red the book will surely like this film. Absolutely touching and full of drama.In my opinion, the film deviates, in some very important scenes, from the book version and that really disturbed me. Particularly the final scenes. Nonetheless i can absolutely recommend, fans of pure russian realism, to buy and watch this film or at least, to read the book.
June 29, 2006

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