Splicing scenes featuring his protagonist, Ivan (John Savage,
The Deer Hunter), among excerpted interviews with real soldiers from John Huston's landmark World War II documentary
Let There Be Light, director Andrei Konchalovsky brilliantly sets the stage for a morally ambiguous tale of a war hero's return home to a small town. Disappointingly, the opening of
Maria's Lovers promises much more than it ultimately delivers. Ivan has survived the tortures of a Japanese POW camp by continually dreaming of his childhood sweetheart Maria (Nastassja Kinski). When he returns to find her with a boyfriend and a grown-up libido, Ivan can't reconcile his guardian vision with the real Maria. Even as she declares her love for him and they hastily marry, Ivan's nightmares intervene. In short, Ivan can't perform. Minor roles for Robert Mitchum and Keith Carradine (as a ridiculous wandering minstrel who seduces Maria after Ivan flees in shame) seem wasted on a melodramatic script that often sounds as if it was poorly translated into English. The nostalgic scenery of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, (rolling fog, river ferries, careening factories) is compelling, as is Kinski (who is at her most seductive and downright breathtaking), but Konchalovsky's affection for his characters and their landscape cannot surpass his stilted vision of America.
--Fionn Meade
