Heartthrob for a New Millennium

Russian movie star Oleg Menshikov doesn't know a word of French, but never mind. Language barriers aside, the Russian heartthrob has nonetheless conquered France this fall with his performance in French director Regis Wargnier's new film "East-West."


Renowned in Russia for his roles in Nikita Mikhalkov's "Burnt by the Sun" and "The Barber of Siberia," the 40-year-old Menshikov is now becoming a famous face in France.


"He is the best," said "East-West" producer Yves Marmion, explaining his choice of Menshikov for the title role in the epic historical romance, which was released in France on Sept. 1. "As far as age, physique and, of course, talent are concerned, he was the most obvious choice."


The ingredients Menshikov must digest in "East-West" are not for just any stomach: passion and deceit, beauty and violence, powerful emotions and political repression, survival and sacrifice - all of it taking place on a little-known page of Soviet history.


It is June 1946. Josef Stalin has launched his large-scale propaganda scheme to lure back Russians who emigrated to the West during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. He offers them amnesty, a Soviet passport and the opportunity to rebuild the post-war Soviet Union.


Doctor Alexei Golovin (Menshikov), his loving French wife Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire) and their son Seryozha (Sergei Bodrov Jr.) respond to the call and return to Golovin's homeland. Once back in Odessa, however, the family does not receive the welcome they expected. Alexei's compatriots, the "traitors of the motherland," are either sent to labor camps or executed. The Golovins escape this fate only because the government hopes to remake Menshikov's young doctor into a "model returnee." A communal apartment becomes the family's new reality. Marie breaks down. She has only one goal: going back to France, recovering her freedom.


"It's a very Russian film. It's packed with emotions. It's about a beautiful love story taking place amidst difficult circumstances," Marmion said. "The landscapes are also very Russian. They provide a very traditional image of Russia. You can feel that the filmmaker loves this country."


The $12 million film, which also features world-famous French actress Catherine Deneuve, who visited Moscow last month, has been the source of more than one headache for those involved. It's not easy, after all, when your Russian actors don't speak French and your French actors are far from home - the entire movie was filmed in the Crimea, Ukraine and Bulgaria, where Wargnier had previously spent time traveling.


But the cast has gone to great lengths to achieve the film's "Russianness." Authenticity has been the proverbial bee in their bonnet: Menshikov had to learn all of his French lines phonetically. He may come out reciting his lines like a parrot, but for Marmion, Menshikov's inexperience with the French language is logical. "The film is about a French-Russian couple and it wouldn't feel right to have a French actor pretending to be Russian," he said.


In his hunt for "the real thing," Wargnier, the award-winning director of 1991's "Indochine," has even hired Russian fashion designer Vladimir Svetozarov to make the film sets and communal apartment look Russian. The film's creators have obviously strived to make a French film with a decidedly Russian soul.


Will fame abroad rob us of more Menshikov here in Moscow? The answer, fortunately, is likely to be no. The star has long been wooed by foreign directors, especially in France. But he is playing hard to get with the West. He once told reporters that it's fine to emigrate before the age of 15. Beyond that age, it's too hard to adapt.


"East-West," which has received excellent reviews in the French press, will premiere in Moscow on the eve of the new millennium in one of the two new multiplex movie theaters set to open this fall.


What better way to end 1999 than with a beautiful French love story? The hero may not speak French ... but who cares?