Bez svideteley

There is another aspect that was not mentioned yet - the historical. Ul'yanov's character visits his ex-wife to make sure she is not going to disclose that he betrayed his friend who is her husband now. He did that in dark times of Stalin's rule and (not to excuse him!) was in part a victim of that time (as were many, MANY others)... That adds to the intensity and makes the film more powerful... Later is his life Mikhalkov went on to make few more brilliant films showing how horrible Stalin's time was (namely "Burned by the Sun" with its two recent sequels, (Utomlennye solntsem-2- see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403645/)...