East West [1999] - Region 0

A French-Russian production, the film tells the story of a Russian doctor, his French wife and their child. In 1946 they accept Stalin's invitation to exiled Russians to return to the motherland and help rebuild the country; swiftly they discover that the reality doesn't quite match the advertising. The film follows the stresses the situation places on the central couple's marriage and focuses on the wife's dreams of escape, which revolve around an intervention by a grand dame of French theatre (played, appropriately, by Catherine Deneuve). East West suffers slightly from several disorientating lurches forward in time, but is otherwise a superior thriller and a convincing period piece.

On the DVD: East West offers two different trailers, filmographies of the stars and director and scene selection. The film is in French with English subtitles. –-Andrew Muller