Not long ago I enjoyed Afonya, a previous film by director Georgiy Daneliya, and I couldn't help but notice that Autumn Marathon works by performing a similar trick in a very different way: it takes for its main character a man who should be considered quite bad by all measures of reason, but makes us like him, and sympathize with him for the situations he's clearly responsible for getting himself into.
But here it's not from indifferent charm that we feel for him, but as a embodiment of a very human quality of wanting to satisfy those who ask things of us. He's having an affair, and can make neither his wife nor his lover happy because he wants to please them both -- but that's only a part of a nonstop torment he causes himself including taking on translation work he doesn't have time for to help his boss, then not finishing it because he was helping a colleague, who end up taking his commissions. It's a fine tragic flaw in that it's easy for anyone to find some sympathy even if they are not personally a two-timer.
The titles call it a "sad comedy," and that's an appropriate phrase -- it borrows the structure and design of a comedy without having to worry about being funny every moment. So it satisfies in many of the same ways and, with a cast of good supporting characters, often is quite funny.
The well-orchestrated ending is great, and almost existential -- and appropriately simultaneously the funniest and saddest part.
But here it's not from indifferent charm that we feel for him, but as a embodiment of a very human quality of wanting to satisfy those who ask things of us. He's having an affair, and can make neither his wife nor his lover happy because he wants to please them both -- but that's only a part of a nonstop torment he causes himself including taking on translation work he doesn't have time for to help his boss, then not finishing it because he was helping a colleague, who end up taking his commissions. It's a fine tragic flaw in that it's easy for anyone to find some sympathy even if they are not personally a two-timer.
The titles call it a "sad comedy," and that's an appropriate phrase -- it borrows the structure and design of a comedy without having to worry about being funny every moment. So it satisfies in many of the same ways and, with a cast of good supporting characters, often is quite funny.
The well-orchestrated ending is great, and almost existential -- and appropriately simultaneously the funniest and saddest part.