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Poster for Vanished Empire

Vanished Empire

2008 · 1h 45m · N/A Drama, Romance
Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov

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Overview

This story take place in Moscow during the 1970s and unfolds around the love triangle between two young men and a girl who study at the same university. They argue, make up, and face their first disappointments and victories. While busy with personal lives and loves, they miss foreseeing that the country in which they were born and live will soon disappear from the map.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
75%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Shakhnazarov, who began his film career in the Soviet era and was about the age of his protagonists in '73, brings an authenticity to the material, as well as a certain wistfulness in his excellent re-creation of Brezhnev-era Moscow.

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Fresh

A nicely turned film about the crushing inevitability of change.

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
Fresh

In the gray old days of Brezhnev and detente, Russian college students shimmy to "Sugar, Sugar" and shell out for black-market Levis, unaware that these are the best days of their lives

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Fresh

Evocative period details and persuasive performances lend a poignant sadness to Karen Shakhnazarov's familiar, but well-told, coming-of-age tale.

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News
Fresh

[Director] Shakhnazarov came of age during the Soviet Union's Communist days and brings firsthand experience to the Brezhnev-era The Vanished Empire.

V.A. Musetto, New York Post

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