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The Long Farewell traces the rift that grows between an emotionally impulsive single mother (Zinaida Sharko) and her increasingly resentful teenage son (Oleg Vladimirskij), who destroys her world when he announces he wishes to live with his father. Filmed in 1971, Kira Muratova's The Long Farewell was banned and shelved, not to be screened in Perestroika until 1987. Despite the continued censorship Muratova's work received, she still managed to emerge as one of the leading figures in Ukrainian and Russian cinema, building a very successful film career from the 1960s onwards due to her boundary pushing directorial approach and aesthetics. (StudioCanal UK)
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The film already deviates slightly from amongst other Soviet films with its civilian plot about the relationship between a mother and her son, which initially creates the impression of a primary focus on the adolescence and rebellion of the young boy, but gradually involves the capricious (to put it nicely) mother, whose sadness fills the entire film by the end (the director and screenwriter are women, so the focus on the female character is only beneficial). However, the main advantage lies in the lightness and playfulness of the expressive means, which corresponds to avoiding the common Russian melancholy, fatalism, and deep thoughtfulness in terms of content (yes, despite the fact that the film is dominated by the sadness of its protagonist, that is where the art lies). Along with the attractive camera work and editing techniques, which serve better to create impressions than words alone and the plot, the film resembles (the 10-years-delayed and Soviet) French New Wave.
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