Released date: 1994
Directed By: Nikita Mikhalkov

The main emotional draw in this film is familial love. Since this film is so recent and well decorated, comparatively to others we have seen, the internet is littered with reviews, interviews, and other resources. The most remarkable thing that I learned from those resources is that Nadia was played by Mikhalkov's daughter, and that Mikhalkov himself played Kotov. Nadia is priceless and natural. Her character is unforced and remarkably touching.

One of the film's most important themes is that forgetting is dangerous. The last scene, with poor Mitya dying in a tub of his own blood, calls the most strongly to that. In addition, the past haunts Kotov's wife when Mitya arrives and that past is what eventually steals Kotov's faith in the motherland.

"With this film, I am not looking to judge an era, I am only trying to show through a tragic perspective, the charm of a simple existence: of children continuing to be born, of people loving each other, living their life's moments, and having faith that all that was happening around them was for the best. People cannot be blamed for believing, but one can blame those who misled them. How can one accuse someone of stealing his own life? These are the reasons I have tried to understand this era. I am trying to say that we have all been victims and actors of what has happened, victims of what we created."

Mikhalkov's words speak to Russian spirit after the fall of the USSR. This is a film that would have been much more remarkable to see when it came out, with the context of the time period. The context itself can be viewed from an outside prospective, but just not as much as other films we've watched.