Vladimir Kotelnikov

In the focus of the film is the fate of Varvara Basova, whose painfully soulless, philistine-gray existence, devoid of ideals and moral content. Relevant today, the picture sounds like a verdict to all who are mired in vulgarity, who have exchanged life for petty pleasures, profit, empty philosophizing.

Based on the play of the same name by I. Popov and L. Stepanov, staged by the State Academic Maly Theater of the USSR.

The hero saw among his colleagues a man whom he had met during the war in the dungeons of the Gestapo. This man reported that a thief from the same cell was trying to escape. The “thief” was shot, and later it turned out that he was the leader of the underground...