Five Evenings, Nikita Mikhalkov (U.S.S.R., 1979)

(Pyat vecherov). Based on a play by the popular yet controversial Soviet playwright Alexandr Volodin, Five Evenings is an actors’ showcase; like the play, it is rooted in conversation and even divided into five “acts,” the five evenings of the title. Set in Moscow, it tells of the bittersweet reunion of two former lovers who have been separated since Hitler’s 1941 invasion of Russia. The film follows them through five evenings of conversation, dinners, arguments . . . and lies, two lonely people trying to convince each other that they are not lonely. Variety’s Ron Holloway describes Alexandr Volodin as a playwright who “shows a remarkable talent for describing the ethical and moral problems of the everyday, as well as presenting characters with psychological depth while criticizing the behavior of the petit bourgeois class.”

• Written by Alexandr Adabashyan, based on the play by Alexandr Volodin. Photographed by Pavel Lebeshev. With Stanislav Lyubshin, Lyudmila Gurchenko, Valentina Telichkina, Larisa Kuznetsova. (100 mins, In Russian with English subtitles, Color/B&W, 35mm, PFA Collection)