Time to collect stones and not shy away from hugs. The structure of the film is this: at the very beginning we see teenagers — a new generation — thinking about who to be. This is how the spring of today shrinks to shoot into the future. But the spring of the camera will unwind in the opposite direction: further narration turns us to the fate of people who are involved in the secret period of the Great Patriotic War.
Here are four men, about 100 years old. Without exaggeration, to see them in this film is one of the last opportunities to soak up the era captured on film.
What are these people talking about? That they love their homeland, that without patriotism they would not have survived the war. Ideology held a generation together. What to work and be active is great, and laying behind the collar is to cut the sprout of your life.
The weaving of the threads of Soviet newsreels into the narrative fabric reminds us that the military (and post-war) generation has equipped life in the country with ceaseless labor and will, the desire for a better life.
Ugly antonym will be shots of destroyed factories and villages and complement the aching sense of inevitability of the departure of the heroes of the story - veterans. Their lives are coming to an end; the state in which they performed their combat and life exploits is no longer there. The work of their hands will be destroyed or destroyed. The feeling of irretrievable loss only raises the questions posed at the beginning of the film to teenagers. Who are we and where are we going, what do we do, what do we live for, to what are our wills and strength directed? These questions sound for a young country: yes, for those teenagers in the film, but for us through the film.
In the book "The Fate of Man" by Mikhail Sholokhov (and the film of the same name by Sergei Bondarchuk), the main character - Andrei Sokolov - went through the horrors of war and captivity, lost his entire family. The most poignant scene of the film and the book: Andrei Sokolov tells a homeless boy Vanya that he is his father. Vanya rushes to his neck, cries, kisses with the words: “Daddy, dear! I knew you would find me. There is an obvious parallel: it would be good for the homeless generation to inculcate in the frontline. The only question is, do we feel orphaned in a literal, essential sense? The equally obvious answer is no. The values of the new Russia are largely formed under the influence of the market, and society with an unnatural craving rushes to the neck of the media space serving the market, rather than the front generation. Infrastructure (reality) has been destroyed, media space (simulacrum) has been formed. Market people assert their values through the media space, distorting reality with implausible images. People of the spirit assert theirs through the creation of believable creative worlds. There is a recipe for resistance. The film of Vasily Medvedev belongs to the second category, as well as the works of M. Sholokhov and S. Bondarchuk.
The film's latest footage only reinforces the sense of disproportionate difference with the military generation: it seems like a huge ship going through a turbulent sea; we are yachts and boats sailing in different directions. “The fate of man” touches on the theme of the lack of ideas of the present time and gives rise to a second, less obvious – disunity. All concerned will have to find a way to overcome the lack of ideas and disunity of today’s era. It's time to build a new ship.