The Orchard

Spring, 1904; the estate of Lyubov Ranevskaya. The estate has already been sold to pay off debts, and the heart of the land -- a blossoming, fragrant cherry orchard -- is about to be chopped down. The owner of the orchard and her daughter Anna arrive from Paris to bid farewell to their family home. Sergei Ovcharov's film, “The Orchard,” is based on Anton Chekhov's classic play, “The Cherry Orchard.” From the very first production of the play to the current day, critics and directors have insisted that “The Cherry Orchard” is a drama, although the author himself considered it a comedy. In “The Orchard,” the filmmakers return the comic element to this classic play. It is heart-rending and eccentric, a bubbly mixture of Italian comedia del arte and vaudeville. It is high Chekhovian comedy seen through the prism of silent film, its psychological subtlety balanced by the mischief and clownery that were put in the work by the author himself. The heroes of “The Orchard” may weep a lot, but they laugh and have fun even more, like anybody at their country house. On the day the orchard — the source of their love and pain — is sold, they celebrate with all their hearts. They are all, masters and servants alike, destitute, but the thought of big money distorts their thinking, like a skilled puppet-master with comical marionettes.