Long Farewells

Evgenia is a single mother and is very devoted to her only son. When she lets him spend the vacation with his father, he comes back a changed person and tells his mother that he does not want to live with her any more.
Long Farewells came after Brief Encounters and was banned for almost twenty years. The two films are in fact a diptych. Both are shot in beautiful, poetic black-and-white. Both are about the nature of romance, even if it’s a romance between mother and son, which Muratova sees as a metaphor for any male-female relationship. Finally, both are astonishing portraits of women – and of longing, loneliness and unrequited love.
Muratova has always been keen to discover new talents, especially actors. The star and discovery of this film is Zinaida Sharko, who plays the mother. Impulsive and fragile, she turns Long Farewells into a profound exploration of femininity and motherhood.

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