Noi Vivi / Addio Kira
Sog.: dal romanzo We the Living di Andy Rand; Scen.: Goffredo Alessandrini, Corrado Alvaro, Oreste Biancoli, Anton Giulio Majano; Dial.: Anton Giulio Majano; F.: Giuseppe Caracciolo; Mo.: Eraldo Da Roma; Scgf.: Giorgio Abkhasi, Andrea Belobodoroff; Co.: Rosi Gori; Mu.: Renzo Rossellini; Su.: Piero Cavazzuti, Tullo Parmegiani; Int.: Alida Valli (Kira Argounova), Fosco Giachetti (Andrej Taganov), Rossano Brazzi (Leo Kovalenski), Emilio Cigolo (Pavel Sjerov), Giovanni Grasso (Tishenko), Annibale Betrone (Vassili Dunaev), Elvira Betrone (Maria Petrovna Dunaev), Sennucio Benelli (Saska), Cesarina Gheraldi (la compagna Sonja), Silvia Manto (Mariska), Gioia Collei (Acia Dunaev), Bianca Doria (Irina Dunaev), Lamberto Picasso (il capo della G.P.U.), Claudia Marti (Lidia Argounova), Evelina Paoli (Galina Petrovna Argounova); Prod: Franco Magli, Scalera Film
35mm. D.: 122′ e 109′. Bn
Film Notes
A film, in my opinion, that is so dense and fascinating for its excessive romanticism and monumental, cloying sweetness like Noi vivi / Addio Kira deserves to be treated on its own. Alessandrini does not denigrate Communism but Stalinist decline; he criticizes the selfishness and cowardice of the nobility, who were already punished by history. It could be viewed as an apologue about dictatorship and the supremacy of democracy.
Francesco Savio, Ma l’amore no, Sonzogno, Milan 1975
The novel We the Living by the Russian-American writer Ayn Rand had just been published in Italy. The book’s background of the Russian Revolution was very interesting and the three characters were, in my opinion, perfect for the cinema: the girl who comes from a wealthy family; the serious and politically involved official; and a young man and the girl’s first love who was the son of an admiral. The two male figures are so different and yet so interesting, and between them the girl who is in love with one for his good looking and his romantic side, and with the other, the official, for his seriousness in his political life. (…) The film (…) was presented at the Festival of Venice and lasted almost four hours, three hours and fifty minutes. Strangely, I have to say that during those three hours and fifty minutes no one got up, which pleased me greatly. And it was greeted with wild applause. Noi vivi, was divided afterwards. (…) Then Scalera made a version that lasted an hour and a half, of the three hours and fifty minutes, but it was called Noi vivi with Addio Kira in parentheses as a subtitle. (…) I had to do it all at Scalera, even the winter scenes, even the snow was fake; and Saint Petersburg was created there, even the bridges. So the film was probably affected by this way of shooting. But, in any case, the result was a style that had not been experimented before, that is, I would say today, quite near to the television, as everyone was depicted in a close-up.
Goffredo Alessandrini, in Francesco Savio, Cinecittà anni trenta. Parlano 116 protagonisti del secondo cinema italiano (1930-1943), Bulzoni, Rome 1979