List Price: $14.98You Pay Only: $13.49 You Save: $1.49 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Koch International
EAN: 9781417231669
Format: Color, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 1417231661
Label: KOCH VISION
Manufacturer: KOCH VISION
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: KOCH VISION
Region Code: 1
Release Date: December 06, 2005
Running Time: 189 minutes
Sales Rank: 70276
Studio: KOCH VISION
Theatrical Release Date: 1991
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Editorial Review:
Description:
DECEMBER 1949.
Joseph Stalin rules Russia through a brutal regime of terror and systematized torture.
Inside Mavrino Prison, the first circle of penal hell in Stalin’s Russia, the inmates – physicists, mathematicians, electrical engineers, technical experts – are forced to operate a scientific research center. The term of their sentence is undefined. A discovery useful to the government could mean freedom. A failure could mean a labor camp in Siberia.
From a phone booth on a dark Moscow street, a man makes a furtive and a hurried phone call to the American Embassy. His call is being recorded by The Ministry of Security for whom establishing the caller’s identity becomes a matter of mounting urgency.
At Mavrino, a voice print analysis machine is in late-stage development. The pressure to complete it becomes relentless. As tension, suspicion and the risk of betrayal mount, each scientist must struggle to retain his humanity in the face of overwhelming tyranny.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - "First Circle (1991) ... Joseph Stalin Rules Russia... Koch Vision"
Koch Vision present "FIRST CIRCLE" (1991) (187 mins/Color) (Dolby Digital) --- Under Sheldon Larry (Director), Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Author of Novel), Gabriel Yared (Film Score), Ron Orieux (Cinematographer), Serge Morache (assistant hair stylist), Stephen Benoit (assistant director), Leslie Grierson (third assistant director), Kim Karon (assistant art director), Sylvain Arseneault (boom operator), Luc Boudrias (sound re-recording mixer), Eric Rophe (sound), Raymond Vermette (dialogue editor), Mathieu DĂ©cary (first assistant camera), Jean-Yves Denis (grip), Stephen Benoit (assistant to director), Clifford De Spenser (dialogue coach) ------ the cast includes Robert Powell (Gleb Nershin), Victor Garber (Lew Rubin), Dominic Raacke (Nikolaj Schtschagow), GĂĽnther Maria Halmer (Wladimir Tschelnow), Christopher Plummer (Victor Abakumov), F. Murray Abraham (Staline), David Hemblen, David Hewlett ('Ruska' Rostislav), Heath Lamberts, Laurent Malet (Valadine Innokenti), Alexandra Stewart (Aletvina Makaraguine), Raf Vallone (Pyotr Makaraguine), Coraly Zahonero (Clara Makaraguine), Vernon Dobtcheff (Riyumin), Daniel Emilfork (Nikol), Corinne Touzet (Nadia Nerzhin), Robert Joy, Danute Kristo (Nina) ------ the story line takes place in a Soviet prison "Mavrino" December 1949, where a group of scientists work in this grim drama, one can interpret that the first circle includes not just the prison, but the whole uppercrust society of the Soviet Union, with Joseph Stalin as Satan overlooking his domain ... takes ... Read More
Rating:  - No Happy Endings in Stalin's Hellish World
This film is based on Alexander Solzhenitsyn's famous novel of the same title. It is based on the story of a special prison designed for scientists who would carry out research supported by the state in which the conditions of incarceration were better than those in the hellish camps of the Gulag Archipelago. The father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev, worked in a prison laboratory like the one depicted here.
The story depicts the different types of people who are caught in Stalin's world-prisoners, NKVD warders and "investigators", the priviledged Communist Party elite and common people outside the prisons who are just trying to survive. Among the prisoners there is the type who is an enthusiastic supporter of Stalin (he believes that his imprisonment is simply "a mistake"), the idealist who will not compromise his values even if this endangers himself, opportunists who inform on their fellow inmates in order to improve their own situation, and those who debate whether it is moral to help the tyrranical regime in order to increase their chances of release.
The problem with this film is its uneven quality, on the one hand it was filmed in Moscow and the scenes showing the prisons, the shabby side streets and the official goverment offices (which have pictures and busts of Stalin in every scene) give the film a feeling of authenticity. The directing is sometimes outstanding, particularly in scenes involving the wife of Gleb the idealist getting her annual half-hour visit with ... Read More
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