Dream (1941) movie

Completed on the evening of 22 June 1941, the day of the invasion of the USSR by fascist Germany, "Dream" tells the story of the hardships of a Ukrainian peasant woman in a western Ukraine under capitalist, Polish administration. The film reveals the corruption, internal rot, deceit and dubious social values of the Lumpenproletariat in a "large town" in circa 1934 Ukrainian Poland (though, for anyone familiar with the area, it is obviously pre-War Lwow) and how the promise of a socialist Ukraine, "blossoming and prospering" under Soviet jurisdiction to the East, is awaited by the downtrodden and oppressed in the "occupied" western part of the nation. In spite of all the obvious propaganda --- anti-Polish in nature and showing prevelent anti-Semitic attitudes of the time on the part of these Poles to highlight their anti-social and oppressive nature towards non-Polish minorities --- the film is nonetheless rather entertaining and moving. Of tremendous interest are the views of the region and of Lwow prior to the second Nazi occupation of the city and area in 1941 and all of that being filmed and completed on the very day of the outbreak of the War which would change it all forever (the city was occupied a mere week after the completion of the filming). Not all of the propaganda about life in the western Ukraine under the Poles is false; just as not all the hopes that the Poles would disappear in the Ukraine are true. If you are a student of history about the time and place in the film, you will find this film amazingly interesting, entertaining and a rich source of sociological information about the subject at hand. But even if your interest is a bit less intellectual, you will no doubt be entertained by the film's fine acting and passion of the actors.

Dream (1941) movie

Genres: Drama
Production company: Mosfilm

Directed by Mikhail Romm
Writing Credits: Yevgeni Gabrilovich, Mikhail Romm
Music by Genrik Vars
Cinematography by Boris Volchek
Film Editing by Yeva Ladyzhenskaya
Production Design by Vladimir Kaplunovskiy

Cast:
Yelena Kuzmina as Anna
Vladimir Solovyov as Vasil, Anna's brother
Vladimir Shcheglov as Tomash, worker
Faina Ranevskaya as Madame Rosa Skorokhodova
Arkadi Kislyakov as Lazar Skorokhod
Ada Vojtsik as Vanda
Mikhail Astangov as Stanislav Komorovsky
Mikhail Bolduman as Zygmunt Dombek
Rostislav Plyatt as Yanek, cabdriver
Nikolai Orlov as Old weaver
Pyotr Glebov
Viktor Lazarev
Tatyana Govorkova as Neighbor
Aleksandr Smirnov as Student