A Darkly Lyrical, Heart-Stealing ‘Thief’

As a young woman, a suitcase in one hand, a cloth sack in the other, trudges along a dirt road, a man’s voice recalls his youth in Pavel Chukhrai’s Oscar-nominated “The Thief.” It’s a superb film in the classic style of screen storytelling, at once intimate and epic, possessed of lyrical beauty and suffused with that mixture of warmth, suffering and rueful humor so characteristic of Russian films.

The young woman, our soundtrack narrator informs us, is his mother, and only moments later, clutching at the damp earth, gives birth to him. The year is 1946, and his mother, Katya (Ekaterina Rednikova), had been heading toward shelter with relatives in the next town. His father had come home wounded from the war, and died six months before his birth.

We’re fast-forwarded to 1952, with Katya and her now 6-year-old Sanya (Misha Philipchuk, a remarkably expressive actor) encountering a handsome young army officer, Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov), dashing in his uniform, aboard a crowded train. Katya, who has not remarried, is vulnerable to this highly sensual, utterly confident seducer. Moments later they’re having sex.

Stopping at a small city, the couple, posing as man and wife, and the boy, find shelter in a seedy but inviting boardinghouse. The couple slide into a passionate affair, with little Sanya initially jealous of Tolyan until the man starts taking a paternal interest in the boy. For a moment they’re blossoming into a happy family, but it’s not to last--especially in a Russian film set in the grim final flowering of Stalin’s regime.

A brawny, virile man of easy sexual swagger, Tolyan is a veritable Stanley Kowalski who has completely captivated mother and son before they get to know that he is a career criminal who likes his nomadic life of moving from one town to another, doing a little breaking and entering in each place before moving on. And if a pretty woman crosses his path he’ll have his way with her too.

Tolyan does a fine job of toughening up Sanya and giving him paternal affection. In fact, the boy has replaced the image he has had in his mind of the father he never knew with this dangerous newcomer. For Tolyan does not hesitate to use the boy as an accomplice in burglary. Hopelessly in love with the sexy marauder, jealous of his philandering, outraged at his criminal activities, concerned over his impact on her son, Katya hits the vodka bottle and then gathers the strength to try to leave him.

Tolyan is a remarkably charismatic figure, not quite like any other male character in Russian cinema within memory, and in bringing him to life Mashkov combines animal magnetism and intelligence like a young Brando. His Tolyan makes no apologies for what he is and his character keys Chukhrai’s larger point; Tolyan’s betrayal of mother and son becomes a metaphor for Stalin’s betrayal of the Russian people. (Intriguingly, the gregarious Tolyan is always offering toasts to Comrade Stalin, but we’re never quite sure whether it’s a cynical public relations gesture or an expression of admiration on the part of one thug for another or some unconscious blend of both.)

With its shimmering floating quality so apt for a memory film, and with its spacious visual splendor, “The Thief” has that emotional richness, that breadth of vision, that graceful cascading toward a grand climax, that characterizes Fellini’s “Nights of Cabiria,” which resurfaced recently. Films like these remind us how rarely we get to have so heartfelt an experience at the movies nowadays.

* MPAA rating: R, for some sexuality, nudity and language. Times guidelines: The film depicts the profound impact a criminal has on a mother and child in far too intense a manner for young audiences.

‘The Thief’

Vladimir Mashkov: Tolyan

Ekaterina Rednikova: Katya

Misha Philipchuk: Sanya

Amalia Mordvinova: Doctor’s wife

A Stratosphere Entertainment release of a co-production of NTV-Profit (Russia), Productions Le Pont (France) and Roissy Films (France). Writer-director Pavel Chukhrai. Producer Igor Tolstunov. Executive producer Sergei Kozlov. Cinematographer Vladimir Klimov. In Russian, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Westside Pavilion, 10800 W. Pico Blvd., (310) 475-0202, and the Town Center 4, Bristol at Anton, South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, (714) 751-4184 or (714) 777-FILM (No. 86).