Kira Muratova’s first solo feature already displays her sui generis approach to cinema, in an impressionistic portrait of women at work and in love. Through an intricate play of flashbacks and shifting perspectives, BRIEF ENCOUNTERS reveals the tangled romantic triangle that connects a hard-nosed city planner (played by Muratova herself), her free-spirited geologist husband (legendary Soviet protest singer Vladimir Vysotskiy), and the young woman from the countryside (Nina Ruslanova) whom she hires as her housekeeper. Blending observational realism with striking New Wave–style experimentation, Muratova crafts a wryly perceptive study of two very different women bound by chance and each navigating her own career, dreams, and disappointments.
