In beauty is the soul of the people. While science struggles with the theoretical aspects of creating a time machine, cinema has already brought it to life by the very fact of its existence. Soviet films of the middle of the last century are a real journey on the arrow of time into the past, which, with each passing year, I want to make more and more. The explanation for this is one: I want to see the sincere joy of people who have just recovered from a monstrous war. . .
The joint thesis of two aspiring directors Richard Viktorov and Igor Shishov today is perceived somewhat naively, but only in terms of displaying the production conflict. As for personal experiences, here censorship never stood over directors with a sword of Damocles. The plot is simple and straightforward. The heroes are ordinary Carpathians. At the center of the story is the eternal love triangle. The daughter of forester Vasilina (Janna Dmitrienko) watches with admiration as the foreman of loggers Anton Bulyga (Nikolai Dovzhenko) is awarded with a radio.
Anton is no master of loud speeches, but in his work he has no equal. Ilya (Mikhail Egorov) envys the glory of Anton, and he is greedy for money. Close personal happiness is drawn for him in the form of a solid amount, which he proudly declares Vasilina. But the girl does not care about his savings, because her heart is already occupied by someone else. In Soviet paintings, the “production entourage” was necessary solely in order to reveal to the viewer the depth of nobility or the baseness of the betrayal of the characters.
There is no ideological background to this. There is only a spiritual attraction of one hero to another. This thrust is not formed under the yoke of material goods. She needs the mountainous expanse of the Carpathians. She needs a fervent Hutsul tune. She needs a mutual understanding of personal and public interests. Anton and Vasilina have one interest: to save the top of the forest on a steep slope under which the village is located from deforestation. It's one, but it has a lot of shades. So the director of the timber industry Kiriluk (Lavr Masokha) is right in his own way: "I am trying for myself?" I'm trying for everyone!
But the forester Shorban is also right: Human rumor that the sea wave: you can not silence it, you cannot escape it. . ' Right and Anton, who "for obstinacy" was suspended from work: "It turns out that I, like a stump, can be dressed up for glory, or can I support the fence with that stump?" The problem of ethical choice in Soviet cinema always stood in the first place, because in addition to the entertainment function, it never forgot about the educational: "The worst thing in a person is indifference." The positive and absolutely clear finale of the picture is also credited to the cinema of those years: Where do the rivers flow? The rivers flow to happiness!