E-Paper
In touch with reality
Lola, 14, and her mother are trapeze artistes in a circus. One day Lola?s mother vanishes. From then on she has to provide for herself and trusts only the bear and tells him all her secrets.
BEAR’S KISS
Russia 2002
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Fourteen year-old Lola and her mother are trapeze artistes in a Russian circus. Lola loves the circus and she loves a young brown bear her stepfather has brought her. One day Lola’s mother vanishes. From then on Lola has to provide for herself. She trusts only the bear and tells him all her secrets. One night, a young man wakes Lola. At first she is frightened, but the young man tells her he is Misha the bear.
The circus moves to Germany and life becomes more and more difficult for Lola. She and Misha end up in a travelling theatre with an alcoholic tyrant as its director. She rejects his advances and he flies into a rage and hits her. Misha breaks out of his cage to rescue her but in doing so breaks the golden rule.
In despair, Lola takes Misha back to his homeland to set him free. She realises she will never love anyone else as much. As she gives him one last kiss, fate takes a hand to unite the star-crossed lovers forever.
Screenplay:
Sergei Bodrov, Carolyn Cavallero
Cinematography:
Xavier Pérez Grobet (AMC)
Editing:
Mette Zeruneith
Music:
SIG, Giya Kancheli
Principal cast:
Rebecka Liljeberg, Joachim Krol, Sergei Bodrov Jr., Keith Allen, Maurizio Donadoni, Anne-Marie Pisani, Marcela Musso
Production: Karl Baumgartner, Sergei Bodrov / 35mm / colour / 92 mins
Director's bio-note:
Sergei Bodrov studied at the Russian film school VGIK, and began his directing career at the Kazakhfilm Studio in Almaty, where he helped to nurture the ‘new wave’ in Kazakh cinema. Aside from scripting his own films, he has written or collaborated on more than twenty films for other directors in Russia, France, Germany and the USA – including, most recently, Refis Wargnier’s East-West (1999), an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film. He was named European Screenwriter of the Year in 1996.