Mirror for a Hero
Mirror for a Hero
| 13 December 1987 (USA)
Mirror for a Hero Trailers

Sergei and Andrei are walking through a city park and see that a film shoot set just post World War II is taking place . They climb over the park fence to get a better view but hit some cable lying on the ground and find themselves in the past - on May 8, 1949, a day which they seem doomed to relive over and over again.

Reviews
Evengyny Thanks for the memories!
Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.
ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
ericoblair Proust meets "Groundhog Day" in a Donbass coal mining town of Stalinist Russia, with a soundtrack featuring Nautilus Pompilius doing "Goodbye America" – is it any wonder that Khotinenko's Mirror ranks as one of a half-dozen perestroika-era movies that have achieved must-see status for Russians, ex-Soviets, never-were-Soviets and the rest of us?The high-dome version: Zerkalo/Mirror said two things well in 1987 and just as well today: (1) the past is more complex than you thought; and (2) you can't fix it but you can understand it better – which makes empathy possible and reconciliation within reach. To describe much more is to deprive Mirror of some of its power to surprise, so enough said – OK, plus these extra credit questions: 1. Does the Mirror of the title reflect (as it were) A. Tarkovsky's Mirror of 1974? And 2. Is somebody trying to further Perestroika II by putting Perestroika I movies like this one on prime-time Moscow TV so frequently of late, as the reports have it? Isn't that a nice conspiracy theory to contemplate, for a change?
pelemak Great movie. It is a film about ours frequently unfair relation to the parents, caused by the different reasons. Among which the various outlooks on life caused by change of epoch, problem of fathers and children. It seems to me, that the main message of a film - to be a grateful to the parents. Under any circumstances as it is written in precepts. Precisely also characters of people from miner's settlement on Donbass are brightly represented, details of their life and atmosphere are transferred. A window platband in a final fragment of a film is such as in the house of my grandmother, in one of the same miner's settlements nearby Donetsk. Impresses realism of scenes in coal mine. Huge gratitude to Vladimir Hotinenko, Nadezhda Kozhushanaya, Sergey Koltakov, Ivan Bortnik, Natal'ya Akimova, other excellent actors and cinematographers for a masterpiece. Final execution of Orthodox's "Nyne otpuschaeshi" is magnificent. The film has awards: The winner of a special prize of jury of the All-Union film festival in Baku (1988, for a film «the Mirror for the hero»). The winner of a prize of name Vittorio de Sica «For direction» on a film festival in Sorrento (1988). Please excuse for mistakes in English language.
ollaer * Some of it may be a spoiler* Two friends, typical average middle-class Soviet men of late 80s, are walking along when one of them trips on a rusty wire, sticking out of the ground. Miraculously, (and at first unknown to them) they are transfered some 40 years back, in year 1949, the zenith of Stalinist era. They are forced to re-live the same day in '49 over and over again (this movie was filmed some six years before Groundhog Day, and I wonder sometimes if it inspired it in some ways). They can't change the events but they themselves change, and find out what each of them is really worth. The movie title, translated in English, means "A Mirror for a Hero".
artlaub This movie is very redicules at first time seeing it, especially the first half of the movie, later its going a little bit boring but all in all a good movie I give him 7 of 10 points. Its a typical perestroika-movie. The first perestroika movies were in 1986 like w strelyajushej glushi or posledniy reportazh, but this movie is one of the first perestroika-movies, too. The story is interesting, which shows a new generation of russian movies, which were mid-late80's til mid 90's. ++++++