The Elusive Avengers, aka Neulovimye Mstiteli (USSR, 1967)

While many film enthusiasts would be content, upon seeing a passing reference to a genre of Soviet westerns made during the height of the Cold War, to think "huh, interesting" and then move on with their lives, I am the guy who has to immediately find and watch one of those movies. Of course, given the cornucopia of obscure foreign films that YouTube has become in recent years, this is a far less laborious task than it once was--which is why I'm hanging upside down in a gimp costume as I write the. You gotta suffer, people.

Loosely based on Little Red Devils, a novel by Pavel Blyakhin, The Elusive Avengers spawned two sequels, making it one of the more popular examples of the uniquely Russian riff on the Western genre known as the Ostern, or “Eastern.” Like most Osterns, it is set in Ukraine during the chaotic period of civil war that followed the Russian Revolution. This conflict saw a variety of anti-Bolshevik factions take arms against the Lenin regime, making uneasy provisional allies of everything from monarchists to capitalists to more democratically-minded socialists. Despite this smorgasbord of potential alliances, it should come as little surprise that the actions of the film’s titular heroes, while motivated by vengeance, are entirely in keeping with the interests of the Red Army.

In the film’s opening, Danka, a young village boy, watches in horror as his father, a spy for the Russian government, is summarily executed by the vicious warlord Lyuti (played with dissolute menace by Vladimir Treshchalov.) We immediately skip forward a few years to find that Danka and three of his teenage friends have since banded together to defend their home against the gangs of bandits, rebels, and rogue Cossacks that are preying upon the peasantry. In addition to Danka (who is now played by 16 year old Viktor Kosykh), we have Yashka, a gypsy (Vasily Vasilev), Valerka, an intense student-type (Mikhail Metyolkin, in Trotsky-like glasses to drive the point home), and Danka’s sister, Ksanka, a nun (Valentina Kurdyukova.)

At first the group focuses their efforts on the bandit gang led by Ataman Burmash (Yefim Kopelyan), interfering with the transport of his supplies and ill-gotten gains in a series of exciting horseback raids. When it later becomes clear that Burmash is taking orders from Lyuti, the offensive takes on a more personal—and violent—cast. The result is a series of increasingly risky, late night guerilla operations in which the young Avengers, true to their name, elude capture only by the skin of their teeth.

It is worth noting that The Elusive Avengers, in making nods to the Western genre, takes little influence from the American Westerns of Ford and Hawks, and rather more influence from the then-contemporary Euro-Westerns of Leone and Corbucci. This circumstance, as unsurprising as it is, is a happy one, as it means that we get lots of dramatic widescreen composition and sweeping vistas, moody nighttime action, and an expert ramping up of tension. Director Edmond Keosayan layers onto this an element of “Boys’ Own” adventure, building up excitement as we watch our teenage heroes pull off one daring caper after another. You almost expect the action to stop so they can give a thumb up to the camera and tell all the kids out there how “awesome” it is to fight the enemies of communism (there is indeed a fourth-wall-breaking wink at one point. )

The Elusive Avengers is served well by its energetic young cast, among whom I think Vasily Vasilev, who in the same year played a small part in Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, is the standout. As Yashka, the group’s token “ethnic” (a Chinese in the book, an American black man in an earlier film version), he is not positioned as the film’s lead, but nonetheless steals that position by virtue of his sheer charisma and physicality. With Danka providing the vengeful fire that motivates the group, and the studious Valerka planning all of its operations, Yashka is the warrior of the group, left to be at the center of all of the film’s most exciting action set pieces. Among these is a scene depicting the Avengers’ defense of a military cargo train from a gang of bandits on horseback that is so similar to the iconic train sequence in Sholay that it is hard not to imagine it being an influence.

And this is all not to mention Vasilev’s singing and dancing, which are displayed in a scene that takes place after Yashka and Ksanka take jobs as entertainers at a tavern frequented by Burmash’s gang. Indeed, The Elusive Avengers is also something of a musical, with several diegetic scenes of characters breaking into song. This adds considerably to the picaresque sense of fun that intermingles intriguingly with the dark Spaghetti Western dynamic seen elsewhere in the film. Of course, I watched an untranslated version of this movie, so, if they were singing about burning the fat American capitalists in their beds, I might view it otherwise. I doubt that’s the case, though; Given the film seems largely directed at those young men most likely to be seduced by its romanticized depiction of Russian youth defending the homeland, I don’t think it would resort to such buzz-killing cold war proselytizing.

That is, until the end, when the Avengers receive an audience with Joseph Stalin himself, who thanks them for their exploits and makes them members of the Red Army on the spot. I assume this means that, in the film’s sequels (The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers, in 1968, and The Crown of the Russian Empire/Once Again the Elusive Avengers, in 1971), the kids fight as soldiers of the Russian military, rather than as a ragtag band of teenage rebels. If that’s the case, it’s hard to imagine those sequels being as fun or exciting as The Elusive Avengers--although I do intend to find out.

To the Stars by Hard Ways (Russia, 1981)

With the exception of art house fare like Tartovsky’s Solaris, Russian science fiction films have a history of being treated with little respect in the U.S., and To the Stars by Hard Ways is no exception. After falling into the ruinous hands of Sandy Frank, it received one of that producer’s typically haphazard dubbing jobs before being released to American television under the title Humanoid Woman, going on from there to the ultimate ignominy of being mocked by puppets on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

In Russia, not surprisingly, it was a somewhat different story. Scripted by renowned Russian sci-fi author Kir Bulichev, the film was both a critical and box office success during its day, and, after the fall of communism, became something of a cult item among the country’s young film enthusiasts. This renewed popularity prompted the successful release of a restored version of the film (the project of Nikolai Viktorov, the son of the film’s original director, Richard Viktorov) in 2001. Given the contrast between its handling Stateside and its reception in its homeland, it’s tempting for a writer like myself to go that one step further and over-praise the film as being some kind of underappreciated masterpiece. But that simply isn’t the case. Still, To the Stars is nonetheless a well made and interesting movie, and certainly one that rewards a viewing minus the hectoring silhouettes of Joel and the bots.

The film begins with the discovery of a mysterious, human-like woman, the sole survivor of some unascertainable catastrophe, aboard a derelict alien spaceship of unknown origin. In order to both study this extraterrestrial and introduce her to our human ways, the somewhat unorthodox decision is made to bring her back to Earth, where she will live at the home of scientist Sergei Lebedev along with Lebedev’s mom and dad and his college age son Stepan (Vadim Ledogorov), who is finishing his preparations to become an astronaut. That the woman, who comes to be known as Niya, ends up being a quick study of the spoken Russian language ultimately serves to shed little light on things, as she is only able to reveal that she remembers nothing prior to her rescue.

What is immediately apparent about Niya, however, is that she is capable of moving at superhuman speed, and that she has both the power of telekinesis and the ability to teleport herself at will. It is further learned, after closer examination, that she is a creature of synthetic origin, and that her brain is designed so that she can be controlled remotely by some unknown third party. The question then, for both Niya and her human hosts, becomes that of for what purpose she was created, and by whom. When delegates from the ecologically ravaged planet Dessa arrive on Earth asking for assistance, Niya thinks she has found the answer.

Suspecting that Dessa is her home planet, Niya stows away aboard a clean-up vessel bound there, not realizing that it is the same ship on which young Stepan will be making his maiden voyage as a space cadet. Once there, she gradually becomes aware of her true purpose, all the while assisting the crew in its attempts to steer the blighted planet away from the brink of irreparable ecological meltdown. Opposition to these efforts comes from the forces of Turanchoks, an industrialist who has turned the increasing toxicity of Dessa’s atmosphere into an opportunity for profit -- he’s made a killing in canned air and gas masks –- and who sees no gain in having the situation remedied.

Alongside Aleksei Bybnikov’s romantic, harpsichord tinged score, attractive cinematography by Aleksandr Rybin, and a few truly imaginative ideas and inspired visuals, I think one of the things that contributes most to To the Stars by Hard Ways being as enjoyable as it is is the agreeable balance it strikes between hard handed allegory and lighthearted space opera. I know that those who are rightfully wary of propagandistic elements within Soviet films might roll their eyes at the movie’s depiction of a craven industrialist capitalizing on the misery of the masses, but, in that, it’s really no more strident or left-leaning than the nihilistic portrayals of corporate greed found in countless Hollywood versions of dystopia produced since the late 60s.

And, unlike a lot of those latter mentioned films, To the Stars –- no doubt motivated by a desire to disprove any obliviousness to Star Wars on its makers’ parts -- also piles on fun, Flash Gordon-y elements like intrepid space cadets, goofy domestic robots, grotesque alien creatures, groovy looking space vehicles, and a climax that involves both a ravaging space blob and a pitched battle on the surface of an alien planet. In well orchestrated combination with the Earthbound parts of its narrative, which are steeped in both melancholy and mystery, this makes for quite a unique stew, not to mention one whose ingredients, in a testament to Viktorov’s prowess as a director, clash a lot less than you really might expect them to.

Perhaps To the Stars by Hard Ways’ greatest asset, though, is the presence within it of Yelena Metyolkina, a model who was then making her acting debut. With her haunted, marmoset-like eyes and startled, cat-like movements, Metyolkina’s Niya is both an oddly compelling heroine and a striking physical presence, combining an unnervingly alien inscrutability with a vulnerability that is all too human.

And once we learn more about Niya’s unique predicament, I’d think it would be difficult for even the most calloused viewer not to feel a little something for her. Though, by the time of her return to Dessa, she has adapted to the ways of her human hosts as best she can, she is still, at heart, just another ET with a longing to go home -- no matter how ravaged and muck encrusted that home might be. Sadly, as the film’s title implies, that the path home is seldom one as straight and true as it might seem is something that Niya has to learn the hard way.