To those in the outfit! To be among your soldiers is no higher right in the world! I bow low to you, bow low to you, border outpost!
A good film was made by Naum Borisovich Birman. “Calm” and very sincere movie, which raises many problems. The specificity of the service at the outpost is its isolation from both the border detachment and the remoteness from large settlements. For conscript soldiers, this is a plus – “far from the authorities, closer to the kitchen.” It's different for officers. Especially for the young. Special frictions between the Deputy Lieutenant Borodin (Eugene Karelian) and his wife Inna Petrovna (Antonina Aksyonova) the viewer will not see, but these frictions are. A wife is not a “free app” with a husband-officer. She also wants to realize herself in the profession, and not “grow old at the stove”. In such “debris” the director does not climb, softly playing the situation.
1973 is a good time. It's calm at the border. Border conflicts on the island of Damansky and Lake Zhalanashkol occurred 4 years ago. The Afghan War is 6 years away. Hazing in the army exists, but not in a perverted form, as 10 years later. Therefore, the moral and educational aspect in the picture looks quite natural. A competent deputy politician, who came to the service on the "party recruitment", communicates quite tactfully with both the commander and his subordinates. A good deputy politician should also be a good psychologist, because very, very different conscripts come to serve in the army both in intellectual level and in physical training.
“Intellectual conflict” is shown on the example of Private Dmitry Sedykh (Boris Shcherbakov). Greykh - "disturber of military discipline" - is not at all a random character in the picture. If the director decided to cover the entire “pattern” of service at the outpost, then he should have touched on this issue. There is no conflict between soldiers and officers. There is the “intellectual bravado” of a person who came to the border from a completely different, almost “bohemian” circle. Shcherbakov coped perfectly with this role, especially in the final, when he sings the song “The storm is going backwards from us” and soloists for him Eduard Hill.
Special thanks to Borislav Nikolayevich Brondukov for the head of the outpost he played. Konstantin Anatolyevich Grebnev - Officer with a capital letter. A soldier who has been through the whole war understands the service like no other, while never forgetting the needs of a young recruit. The feast scene looks extremely touching when Grebnev remembers front songs.
The only unpleasant “trick” in the film is the scene of the detention of a saboteur. Igor Andronnikov is physically impressive, but as a professional offender, he is simply not. It is clear that it is impossible to do without such an episode in the picture about border guards, but in this case, none is better than this one. However, this is the only “roughness” in the picture, shot with a sincere love for people and with a deep understanding of the material.
"Thunderstorm from us goes back, barely hear the thunder. A soldier hasn't seen his mother for a long time, oh how long he hasn't been home!