Remember your hands! Remember!
Our old Soviet films have always been distinguished by some simplicity and ease (probably the best example of this "I walk around Moscow", a simple plot eventually grew into a masterpiece film), but, nevertheless, they always have something native, which is not in foreign films, some part of our soul from this film. “When the Trees Were Big” is one of those movies.
Having lost his wife during the war, Kuzma Kuzmich Jordanov began to drink and completely descended. But one day, accidentally learning about a girl who lost her parents in the war, Jordanov decided to become her father. Leaving Moscow, he goes to meet with his future daughter.
The film raises serious moral problems of the connection between man and man, even indirectly we can say with the family. After all, Natasha was not the real daughter of Kuzmu Kuzmich, as she thought, and when he came, it was clear that he was going far not to imbue himself with love for his new daughter, but simply to continue to sit idle. But a person’s conscience awakens, largely because he sees how much Natasha loves him, and he degrades and degrades morally. In short, movies are rarely intricate, and yet this does not prevent them in any way, just do not build the Tower of Babel on a foundation of 3 by 4 meters. Many directors rarely get something good when they have nothing behind them, and the script comes across wonderful, the film can just collapse. But here just to destroy nothing and did not have to, as the film is shot in perfect proportions.
The relationship between Natasha and Kuzma Kuzmich is well shown, largely due to the wonderful play of actors Yuri Nikulin and Inna Gulai. Of course, somehow the usual shown friendship, and then the love of Natasha and Lenka, somehow typical, but that you could expect more, still the film is not about this. Of course, the collective farm as a society is shown a little poorly, but, nevertheless, the film is a personal drama. A personal drama about torment, about constant remorse, and as a result about forgiveness. The masterpiece of the last scene is a hymn to the fact that for all sins, whatever they would be, if a person repents, forgiveness follows.
What does it mean when the trees were big? The main character, recalling her childhood, said that she remembers that the trees were big. If the film is about forgiveness, about the atonement of sins, then perhaps the time when the trees were big is the altar of purity and holiness, because small children are pure and innocent.
In the end, Kuzma Kuzmich was the winner, as he re-educated, became a different person, and Natasha was the winner, as she finally found a close person. Everyone is happy, so maybe it would be right to go on deception, for the sake of such sincere happiness?
The film was shot in a typical old Soviet style of soulful and simple cinema. But even now, after so many years, he warms the soul with warmth, and instills some optimism. And those who think that Nikulin is only a comedian, I hasten to disappoint. In "When the Trees Were Big," he played his best role.Original