This film interested me after reading the annotation. I am always attracted to such fantastic plots, where some temporary interweaving takes place. Later, after watching it, I found out that the basis for the film was the work of the science fiction writer Kir Bulychev, which made me smile pleasantly. The great maestro allowed his story, which was transferred to a video tape, to share with the world a unique vision, a very tremulous story with a mass audience.
The plot itself makes you interested. The modern world, the capital, where a man accidentally contacts a girl on the phone, who turns out, according to her assurances, to be from 1942. Here you immediately realize that there are very interesting events ahead, because these were the hungry years of the war, which is what thirteen-year-old Nina tells about. The main character named Vadim initially considers everything to be some kind of misunderstanding or a hoax, but then begins to take what is happening quite seriously.
Unlike the book, where events take place in the 1970s, this film adaptation shows our modern world. This is a completely different society than what it was in the 70s, when the memories of the terrible war years were still quite fresh. Our world is a completely different society, it is a world of prosperity, here they do not know what the terrible hunger of war is even from stories, because there are almost no people left who could tell such stories. This fresh look at this story allows you to get into the atmosphere of the film much deeper, to wonder how you would build a dialogue with Nina on the other end of the wire, so that you would ask how you would try to help her.
But there is a main character for questions, who is masterfully played by Sergey Puskepalis. He perfectly manages this image, the whole film is essentially based on his game. Let his hero here be the personification of a certain aristocratic life, get rich with trips around the city at night in an expensive car and get-togethers in an elite restaurant. Vadim is still the same person who is not alien to the experiences and even more so the fate of a completely unfamiliar child, a teenager. He puts communication with a girl for himself more important than negotiations or a feast. He is trying to figure out the situation and somehow help.
And he has a reason for that. It's just that at one point he begins to believe his young interlocutor and look for an option on how to help Nina out in the distant hungry 1942.
The film is structured in such a way that it keeps in suspense from the first minutes to the last frame. Excellent directing, acting, the situation itself - all this is wrapped up in an excellent short film product that is remembered by the viewer, evokes emotions, makes it possible to imagine yourself in Vadim's place and in Nina's place. How would you behave, would you believe in such a possibility, even if the reason for such a phone call was a passing asteroid.
The main character thanks to this chance "meeting" rethinks his life, begins to understand what is really important. Loved ones are important. Parents are important. After all, the day will surely come when we will no longer be able to just see them, call and just chat. And this is vital for each of us, even if we don't realize it now. But the saddest thing is that awareness, as a rule, comes when it's too late.
This is an instructive story that encourages us to break out of the routine of every day and breathe in the air we breathe every day, to become closer to those who are really dear, to be able to appreciate every moment, every thing that is available. Especially when you realize how difficult it was for others during the difficult years of the war.
9 out of 10.
