In this incisive dispatch from the newly collapsed Soviet empire, bullet holes from WWII still pockmark the old stone buildings. Akerman journeys from East Germany to Moscow between the late summer and winter of 1993 ('while there’s still time'), chronicling in deliberate tracking shots, circular pans, and domestic tableaux yet another moment of radical upheaval in the 20th-century, the faces and bodies of Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, and Russians weighed down with obedient resignation and uncertainty.
Directed by Chantal Akerman
woman director
IMDB
N/A
Letterboxd
3.9 / 5
Crew
Chantal Akerman
Director
Chantal Akerman
Writer
Marilyn Watelet
Executive Producer
Marilyn Watelet
Production Manager
Popular Reviews
10 reviews
carson beale
more and more i’m watching films i can’t give a star rating because they simply exist. they simply are. i like this film. it pairs nicely with painting my nails red.
more and more i’m watching films i can’t give a star rating because they simply exist. they simply are. i like this film. it pairs nicely with painting my nails red.
cyrian
7.9★ · 04/15/25
Chantal Akerman qui arrive à parler de toutes ses obsessions dans un documentaire sans dialogues????? elle est trop forte c'est une dinguerie
Chantal Akerman qui arrive à parler de toutes ses obsessions dans un documentaire sans dialogues????? elle est trop forte c'est une dinguerie
polina
9.0★ · 09/07/24
«From the East» is a portrait of post-Soviet Russia in crisis that probably best documents the state it was in at the time. what I like most is how it reflects the cold gaze of a visitor to whom this country is foreign.a look at desperate lost people, huge empty streets and this hopelessness everywhere, which is periodically interrupted by pleasant moments, like the dance of a laughing couple in the square or the comfortably shown routine from the apartments of random people. > I also really interested in the moments when people approached the camerawoman on the street and began to be outraged that they were being filmed, and I’m glad that they didn’t cut it out. such scenes in this film make its reflection of Russian society more complete and lively. it's a little more than a film for me. this is a perfectly reproduced image of what the country was going through in those years. and what lively footage in it. each of them created a feeling of something familiar, close to me. as if I was there. and I think it's still a very relevant. I love you, chantal… your films say so little, but at the same time so much
«From the East» is a portrait of post-Soviet Russia in crisis that probably best documents the state it was in at the time. what I like most is how it reflects the cold gaze of a visitor to whom this country is foreign.a look at desperate lost people, huge empty streets and this hopelessness everywhere, which is periodically interrupted by pleasant moments, like the dance of a laughing couple in the square or the comfortably shown routine from the apartments of random people. > I also really interested in the moments when people approached the camerawoman on the street and began to be outraged that they were being filmed, and I’m glad that they didn’t cut it out. such scenes in this film make its reflection of Russian society more complete and lively. it's a little more than a film for me. this is a perfectly reproduced image of what the country was going through in those years. and what lively footage in it. each of them created a feeling of something familiar, close to me. as if I was there. and I think it's still a very relevant. I love you, chantal… your films say so little, but at the same time so much
