Young architect Severin Sereda on the eve of an important state reception, learns that his father was seriously injured in a pit, where he was looking for water for the village. Severin, offended by his father for leaving Severin’s mother for his young wife, does not want to go, but his girlfriend Zhenya persuades him to go. Not having time to see his son, Severin's father dies. Severin, although he has not forgiven his stepmother, is trying to get her a pension, but for this you need to prove that there is water. And Severin waved his hand at the state reception, once again quarreling with Zhenya, takes up the shovel and climbs into the pit.
The basis of "Search" is quite cool, for Soviet cinema, intrigue, but it is told sluggishly. The authors wanted to use new means of expression, but they could not adapt them to their script. The surge of emotions for no reason is replaced by melancholy. The narration goes in some ragged rhythm and does not allow you to get carried away by what is happening on the screen. As a result, the characters, especially the main one, look impulsive and unbalanced. And, of course, this is not what the authors wanted to say about their heroes.
The film is divided into two parts. The first, takes place in Moscow, where Severin quarrels with his girlfriend Zhenya because of his unwillingness to go to his father, is very long and puts the main characters in a bad light. There are many superfluous characters that do not carry any semantic load. The second, takes place in the homeland of Severin, everything is good with the action, and part just lacks timekeeping, many characters who just definitely carry a semantic load, but they are not really described and not put into action. The second part, on the contrary, is not stretched, but clumped, but in general better than the first. And more than that, the Moscow and settlement parts are poorly mounted with each other, the heroes seem to move from one world to another through some magical portal. Of course, the goal here was to contrast capital and provincial life, but it was done clumsily.
There are complaints about the main character, it did not work. At first, a grin does not come off his face, showing us the appearance of a cheerful and easy person, but this causes irritation. He speaks in chopped phrases, wanting to show us a determined and firm man, but he looks more nervous. When the plot reaches the climax, everything becomes easier, but where it is necessary to play on the semitones, the image breaks.
But Zhenya turned out, largely due to the appearance of Lyudmila Cherepanova, not familiar and some unearthly, although the merit of the unearthly, rather, in the acting. But she was not spared script irregularities.
In general, the film has delicious components, but they are mixed with an uneven layer. Perhaps the authors swung for 2-3 hours of screen time and then they would have managed to withstand the desired rhythm and reveal the storylines hanging in the air, and they were cut on the art advice, but we only have to watch the final product.