Hacker Cinema
Office Romance
Служебный роман
1977 · Film · 159 min
Directed by Eldar Ryazanov
Anatoly Novoseltsev is a mousy single father and office stumblebum working at a statistics bureau in Moscow. In the hopes of being promoted, he is coaxed into charming his disagreeable and seemingly unfeeling boss, Ludmila Kalugina, or "Meany" as she's otherwise known by her subordinates. Helped by his colleagues Olya and Yura, Anatoly attempts to ease the yoke of Ms. Kalugina, and what follows in the wake of his graceless manoeuvres is completely unforeseen, as he awakens a side to her not yet known, even to herself..
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3 comments on Hacker News
I didn't mean to blame victims. I just mean that under totalitarian regime one need to put extra work to compensate the pressure from the state and try to do it wise. Right after the Stalin rule there have been official De-Stalinization and rehabilitation of Gulag prisoners. That's why under USSR I usually don't mean Stalin period. There was no one single and equal USSR whole 70+ years long. Every new party leader is a new era.
> singing Ukrainian songs you can go to the russian prison
I'm not sure how is this right now, I fear it got worse, but on August 2022 it was possible(*). Russian guitarist performed a Ukrainian song in Ukrainian original in public:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPu5WQKXsjM (cut)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82argH8zZXQ&t=1041s (full, 10.89 million views)
And it is not just some beautiful Ukrainian song. It is a prominent "I will not surrender without a fight" (2005). Which sounds provocative enough these days. Yeah, he did not continue doing it again and again, thus it's by no means a prove one can safely practice this on a daily basis.
This song must be known by almost every Russian (and Belorussian), since this song was used once Zelensky played the main male role in the rus-ukr movie "Office Romance. Our Time" (2011) remake of the famous 1977 USSR original.
OTOH one of the most prominent (former) Ukrainian singers and since 2014 Russian singer Taisia Povaliy could sing her Ukrainian songs on December 2024 at the main State Kremlin Palace in Moscow. (Obviously, because she openly supports the state.)
[1] https://www.mk.ru/social/2024/12/11/marshal-kadysheva-buynov-otmetili-yubiley-taisii-povaliy-v-kremle-spela-na-ukrainskom-i-rasplakalas.html (rus.)
The “political incorrectness” angle is really an unnecessary and very stupid aside that tarnishes an otherwise decent piece:
> Nor could [Office Romance] be much less politically correct. One can only imagine what a modern HR-manager would make of Office Romance, of its “power-imbalances”, “problematic” attitudes and “inappropriate” behaviour. That said, the same HR-manager should at least pause to wonder what, in doing all we can to make such relationships shameful and unfeasible, we’re also doing to ourselves.
The correct answer of course is that any professional, HR or otherwise, prioritizes facts over nice stories in movies. And the facts are that many supervisor-subordinate relationships are exploitative, often start from illegal harassment, and in any event are bad for business. Putting concepts like power imbalances and inappropriate behavior in scare quotes is just creepy and indicates sexist contempt for victims of workplace sexual harassment.
Markowski is clearly working in his politics here (which are largely centered around hyperventilating about “cancel culture”), but even by the standards of the genre it is particularly gross to suggest that the only people concerned about bosses who sleep with their employees are the PC Prudes who run HR.
Reminds me of the office in the well-known Soviet film, Sluzhebniy Roman (Office Romance) filmed in the Soviet Union in the early 70's. But the senior manager did have her own office which doubled as a conference room.