Ninotchka - Silly Movie or Eastern European History Lesson?

The 1939 movie 'Ninotcha' (starring Greta Garbo) has a far-fetched storyline and silly characters - but some elements portray Soviet life in a true light.

When I sat down tonight to watch Ninotchka, a story about a stern Soviet envoi to Paris, I honestly thought that this black-and-white Hollywood film would be a waste of time. However, it isn't - not for a student of Eastern European history.

Elements of the storyline ring true to Soviet life. Sure, the humorless, analytical portrayal of the a Soviet poster-child like Ninotchka might be a bit of an exaggeration, but there is an underlying reality to the basis for events that set the story in motion.

Paris, indeed, was an obvious destination for escaping Russian nobility, especially after the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Grand Duchess Swana is just a character, but there were many real aristocrats like her who settled outside of the Soviet Union, hoping their names would help them when their bank accounts were empty. Royal treasures, like Faberge eggs were sold to foreign buyers for discount prices to fund government projects (in the movie, it is Grand Duchess Swana's jewels that are being pawned without her consent).

One of the most striking aspects of the movie is Ninotchka's return to the USSR, where she shares a room with three other women - in a house shared by countless more families. (Communal living spaces such as these can also be seen in the movie Doctor Zhivago.) Privacy was unheard of, spaces were crowded, kitchens and bathrooms were shared. For a person to get to his or her room in the house, he or she might have to walk through the living spaces of other families. The misery of that existence is poignantly revealed in the scene when Ninotchka sits in the middle of her shared room and the silence of her thoughts is interrupted by the snores of her roommate.

Of course, in 1939 Ninotchka was meant to be, besides a love story and a comedy, propaganda against Communist ideology and the Soviet lifestyle. Today, separating fiction from reality reveals the history lesson in this Hollywood film.