This movie is about the most desperate and tragic situation in the human life. This is when our life is determined by external forces. Even the most basic form of happiness - being with you family, enjoying your child - were impossible in the Russia of Stalin.
Sometimes I think about people who were borne 20 years before World War II in Germany, Poland or Russia. I wonder whether they had a feeling that the life was extremely unfair to them. The feeling that your fate was determined by the time you were borne in, and that you couldn't do anything at all to somehow change it. If Mitya, Kotov and Marusya would not die then, they would have to wait for 50 years to be able to truly understand what happened to them and who was to blame for it.
I was puzzled why Mitya picked up the phone and agreed to arrest Kotov. Why didn't he stop his suffering immediately, as he knew that he had no other option than ruining lives of the people he loved. Was it his hatred towards Kotov and the opportunity to take revenge for being expelled for 10 years? Was it the last hope that his love to Marusya would reverse her marriage?
After watched the film again & again I decided that he knew from the offset there was no way out. Mitya went to his old home because he wanted just one thing - to say farewell to his dream that the old times would ever return. The dream that made him betray his comrades in the 20th, and come back from France in the 30th.
I'm so happy that we live in freedom and that the iron curtain fell.
