This movie is about the most desperate and tragic situation in the human life. This is when our life is determined by external forces. Even the most basic form of happiness - being with you family, enjoying your child - were impossible in the Russia of Stalin.

Sometimes I think about people who were borne 20 years before World War II in Germany, Poland or Russia. I wonder whether they had a feeling that the life was extremely unfair to them. The feeling that your fate was determined by the time you were borne in, and that you couldn't do anything at all to somehow change it. If Mitya, Kotov and Marusya would not die then, they would have to wait for 50 years to be able to truly understand what happened to them and who was to blame for it.

I was puzzled why Mitya picked up the phone and agreed to arrest Kotov. Why didn't he stop his suffering immediately, as he knew that he had no other option than ruining lives of the people he loved. Was it his hatred towards Kotov and the opportunity to take revenge for being expelled for 10 years? Was it the last hope that his love to Marusya would reverse her marriage?

After watched the film again & again I decided that he knew from the offset there was no way out. Mitya went to his old home because he wanted just one thing - to say farewell to his dream that the old times would ever return. The dream that made him betray his comrades in the 20th, and come back from France in the 30th.

I'm so happy that we live in freedom and that the iron curtain fell.

This masterpiece of a psychological drama done in the immediate post-soviet Russia is very hard to review, for fear of saying too much.

First let's say that the author clearly wants to give stalinist Russia its due. But there's much more depth to it than that ; this film is first and foremost about destiny, how fate can ruin even the most well-meaning and virtuous lives. It is also about guilt and remorse, in a very subtle way.

In 1936, in Soviet Russia's countryside, a Red Army Colonel, loving husband and father of a little daughter, a dignified and proud man, receives a visit from an eccentric, playful and handsome man, to the great joy of the other residents of the house, who know him well, for he had lived in the place many years ago.

Through the eyes of the little girl, in the span of one summer day, a drama will unfold...But who is the real culprit? The mysterious man (Oleg Menshikov, who gives a memorable performance!)? The stalinist system? And what about the immaculate Colonel (impeccably played by the Director, Nikita Mikhalkov)? Is he so really virtuous after all? Doesn't he have, he also, a dirty little secret which changes everything?

Once again, to say too much would be counter-productive...Just for the immense performance, of Oleg Menshikov, up to its heart-wrenching conclusion, this film is worth watching...A must-see.