A Soviet sports legend faces the ultimate opponent: his own retirement.
Honored Master of Sports, celebrated champion — speed skater Alexey Streshnev feels that his time of success has passed and that it is better to leave the ice rink undefeated than to tempt fate again and again. His decision is opposed by his sports colleagues and his wife, and most importantly — he is the main rival of his former protégé, the young talented athlete Vasily Kurbatov.
Acting
Dmitriev's weathered pride practically freezes the camera lens.
Direction
Sadovsky wrings 46 minutes of existential dread from ice skating.
Director
Viktor Sadovsky
Ivan Dmitriev
Стрешнев
Igor Efimov
Курбатов
Grenada Mnatsakanova
Наташа
Boris Ryzhukhin
Лиханин
Tamara Alyoshina
Вера Сергеевна
Aleksey Kozhevnikov
Boris Kokovkin
Окунев
Pantelejmon Krymov
Прилежаев
Nikolai Penkov
Maria Samoilova
Svetlana Mazovetskaya
домработница
German Khovanov
председатель союза спортивных обществ
Zoya Aleksandrova
контролерша
Aleksei Smirnov
болельщик (нет в титрах)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Khrushchev's Thaw, this quietly subverted Soviet heroic athlete tropes by making the champion's doubt the real drama.
Director Sadovsky was later blacklisted for 'excessive pessimism'—apparently 46 minutes of a sad skater was too much for the Party.
SU
