TSPDT

Key Production Country: USSR
Key Genres: Comedy, Comedy of Manners, Satire, Drama, War Drama, Romantic Comedy
Key Collaborators: Sergey Komarov (Leading Character Actor), Nikolay Bogolyubov (Leading Character Actor), Nikolay Kryuchkov (Leading Character Actor), Sergei Kozlovsky (Production Designer), Yelena Kuzmina (Leading Actress), Vladimir Fogel (Leading Actor), Viktor Dobrovolsky (Leading Actor), Nikolai Erdman (Screenwriter), Mikhail Kirillov (Cinematographer), Vladimir Uralsky (Character Actor)

“The best Soviet director of comedies, gentle and lyrical in his approach, full of warmth in his perceptive observation of behavior. Originally a boxer, he trained in films under Kuleshov.” - Georges Sadoul (Dictionary of Film Makers, 1972)

"The boxer, actor and director Boris Barnet was one of the greatest geniuses in Russian film. Even so, his name and his works are still considered something of an inside tip in the West… Barnet's idiom, which hovers between satire and lyricism, has drawn comparison with Lubitsch, Hawks and Chekhov. This only does partial justice, however, to the slightly eccentric magic of his works. He was able to envelop so-called "mundane matters" with wit, beauty and charm. He invented protagonists who pass through this world with an inexplicable elegance – "as if he had brought them from an enchanted island", as one Russian critic put it." - Austrian Film Museum, 2005

"In addition to their humor, Barnet's films reveal warmth and tenderness, an acute visual sensibility, good control of his actors, and a disciplined precision in editing. Following a string of poorly received films in the late 50s and early 60s, Barnet took his own life." - The Film Encyclopedia, 2012

"Barnet's career in Soviet cinema spanned four decades. He belonged to the generation of lesser known filmmakers who in fact constituted the backbone of that cinema, while taking a back seat in the theoretical polemics that attracted international curiosity and focused attention on the avant garde. His films displayed a mastery of visual technique and a disciplined economy of style. He was a mainstream director but a subversive artist, whose work, tinged with warmth, humour, and humanity, constantly attracted Soviet audiences." - Richard Taylor (Film Reference)

"Boris Barnet found that his tragicomic satirical skills as an actor and director were a double-edged sword when faced with an intractable Soviet state bureaucracy. However, he made two acknowledged masterpieces, Outskirts (1933) and By the Blues tof Seas (1936), during a turbulent career that ended in suicide." - Tim Evans (501 Movie Directors, 2007)

"Though many of his films were popular successes when they came out, Barnet is known among cinephiles mainly as the greatest forgotten master of the golden age of Soviet cinema… Jacques Rivette has called Barnet the best Soviet director after Eisenstein; Jean-Luc Godard has written about him with similar reverence, as has film historian Bernard Eisenschitz." - Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader, 2004)

"Personally I like the droll aspects of a drama and the tragic elements of comedy. It is a question of proportions, not always easy to find." - Boris Barnet (Conversation with Georges Sadoul, 1959)