I’m many years old, but I watched the movie “Single Name” 42 years after it was released for the first time. I have great respect for Daniel Granin, especially since he is also the author of the script. The theme of the film and even in such a constellation of the Russian acting elite seemed very interesting to me.
A talented mathematics student created an original perspective equation. Unfortunately, the young scientist falls into the center of the cycle of passions and intrigues of the scientific world surrounding him. A strong opponent of the young mathematician brutally defeated the creation of the author. No doubt it's a terrible blow. But in science, it's not just gingerbread. Science is also about fighting for your ideas. The inexperienced young scientist did not find the strength to fight or devote himself to science and went into production. Years later, fate gave him another chance: to seriously climb the production career ladder. But here, for some reason, he did not succeed. And now he, the head of a small electrical installation department, 30 years later accidentally gets to the House of Scientists for the international symposium of mathematicians. Sitting in the hall and listening to the report of a young scientist, seeing a board painted with familiar mathematical formulas and hearing his name, his eyes do not light up. It is obvious that for science he is already a lost man. After leaving the hall, he flirts, begins to clarify relations, simultaneously allowing arrogance in conversations with his old colleagues in science, flaunting his production present.
The film's philosophy is eternal. But with the ideology indicated by Granin at the end of the picture, I will allow myself to disagree. The hero of the film offers his old colleague in science a dilemma: “What do you think is more important: life or fate?” And he himself pompously sums up: “Life is more important.” It seems to me that here D. Granin was influenced by the polemical moods of the time.
Life and destiny are from God. Fate predetermines our way of life, but at the same time we realize our own destiny. For the hero, wonderfully played by G. Zhzhenov, there can be no return to science, despite all the persuasion of former colleagues. Having ruined the bright talent sent down from above, I personally do not like him.
I focused my attention on the main character, but no less interesting are the other characters of the film, marked by the highest skill of the actors, especially academician Laptev in the brilliant performance of R. Plyatt. In the picture, all the characters are unambiguous. There are neither good nor bad here. Just ordinary people with their "cockroaches" in their heads.
For a thinking viewer, with living science, the film “The Nameless One” will always be modern, despite the variability of social formations.
