Ninotchka

Ninotchka; comedy, USA, 1939; D: Ernst Lubitsch, S: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi

Paris. Soviet emissaries Buljanoff, Iranoff and Kopalski got the assignment to sell valuable jewelry to fill their country's scarce treasury. But they get into trouble because the jewelry is also claimed by Duchess Swana, so her lawyer Leon enters into negotiations with them. In order to settle the matter, official Ninotchka is sent to Paris, a cold-blooded communist. But she starts enjoying in capitalism, falls in love with the "enemy" Leon and eventually softens. But Swana forces her to immediately return to Moscow and leave Leon in exchange for the jewelry. Leon is forbidden to go into the Soviet Union, so he arranges for Buljanoff, Iranoff and Kopalski to make trouble in Istanbul. Ninotchka comes to bring order and meets Leon again.

Shining comedy "Ninotchka", written among others by Billy Wilder, is devastatingly elaborated and subversive in criticizing Communism and dictatorships in general, but the whole story works on much deeper levels. The whole semi-realistic tangle is just an excuse to introduce the brilliant character Ninotchka in a setting out of her place, since she is almost an anti-human—she is obsessed by the rules of Communism, cold, mechanic, slightly misanthropic, without emotions or happiness. In a way, she is a lot like the heroine from the animated series "Daria", and Greta Garbo plays her brilliantly. The minute Ninotchka enters Paris, she starts talking hilarious statements: when the three Soviet emissaries (whom were already "spoiled" by the Capitalistic way of life since in one scene one of them insist they take an elite, not a shabby hotel, because who would want "a pipe out of which when you press for hot water, cold water comes out, and when you press for cold water, you don't get nothing?") are surprised when they meet Ninotchka, as she brings them news from the Soviet Union: "The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer, but better Russians".

Later on she is only talking in propaganda language, not from her own heart, including that love is "just chemistry", denying even her own humanity—but in a free country, she meets Leon and falls in love with him, changes, softens up, and starts enjoying life. The whole sequence where Leon is trying to make the too serious Ninotchka laugh in a restaurant is genius, from his silly jokes ("How many people live on the Moon? 500 million. But it must be crowded during half-Moon!") up to the point where he accidentally trips and falls from his chair, which makes her burst into laughter completely by accident—at that moment, the real Ninotchka awakens and starts to live, to feel something, showing how various ideologies inhibit and distort people's happiness. Some noted that the film exalts the power of Capitalism and democracy too much, but the story handles actually something different: the search for happiness and a spirit free from boundaries or stiff rules of dogmas. Ernst Lubitsch directs the film competently, and the amazingly written screenplay is full of highlights, endlessly quotable dialogues that say everything in only one line ("Comrade, I've been fascinated by your five-year plan for the last fifteen years!") and surprises, like the fantasy scene where Ninotchka's father smiles on a photo.

Grade:+++