Former fighter pilot turned provincial schoolmistress Nadezhda Petrovna struggles to adapt to peacetime, having internalised military ideals of service and obedience.
Direction
Shepitko's first feature already has that devastating precision.
Acting
Bulgakova's face holds entire wars.
Cinematography
Dreamlike flight sequences vs. crushing institutional greys.
Director
Larisa Shepitko
Maya Bulgakova
Nadezhda Petrukhina
Zhanna Bolotova
Tanya Petrukhina
Pantelejmon Krymov
Pavel Gavrilovich
Leonid Dyachkov
Mitya Grachov
Vladimir Gorelov
Igor, Tanya's husband
Yuri Medvedev
Boris Grigoriyevich
Nikolay Grabbe
Konstantin Mikhaylovich Shuvalov
Sergey Nikonenko
Sergey Bystryakov
Rimma Markova
Shura
Arkadi Trusov
Morozov
Olga Gobzeva
Journalist
Evgeniy Evstigneev
Misha, Guest as Tanya and Igor's
Natalya Gitserot
Наталья Максимильяновна - секретарь училища
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Khrushchev's Thaw, when Soviet cinema briefly allowed complex female protagonists who weren't simply heroic workers.
Shepitko and her husband Elem Klimov both died in a car accident in 1979; she completed only four features. This was the first.
SU
