It is not what everybody expected to see from a show-man like Dmitriy Nagiev, including I. Therefore it was a pleasant surprise for me, and for the same reason a delusion for others. So, the movie is well done, is corageous, both in the sense that Nagiev is a star as entertainer of the small screen, and in the sense that today, doing a movie which investigates feelings, motivations, the sense of justice, the right or not-right to take the law into one's own hands, death and mourn, is not the way to become a block-buster.
The director makes the choice of making a movie about the inner self of the main character, about how he copes with a tragedy which struck and swept away his beloved family from one day to the other. A tragedy which was due to human mistakes, and human carelessness, I may say.
More than the death of his wife and children, he is tormented by his feeling of guilt (true or imaginary) for having invited them to Spain, and by the refusal of the man who was responsible for the tragedy to beg pardon. He just cannot accept that the company wants to get away with it only by giving him a compensation, like for having stained his suite. Here the director and the scriptwriters are able in representing the executive of the company as not interested at all in the human sorrow they have caused, but only in getting rid of the whole matter, preserving their appearance in front of the public opinion. On top of this, the man who made the awful mistake is so haughty that he will not say he is sorry, even if he puts the whole company into an embarrassing position and even if with that few words he could get rid of that irritating man. His haughtiness goes beyond even his self-interest.
This refusal to ask for pardon hits the widowed more than anything else, and maybe we can understand him. This does not mean sharing his deed, which is after all difficult to interpret: is it revenge, though not planned, or "only" a moment of wrath? Be it the one of the other, it is the result of his not being able to cope with the sorrow which struck him. The inner motivations play their role, but I keep myself from approving self-justice, even if for the detestable behaviour of somebody.
Anyway, it is a movie which stimulates the spectator to reflect and build his own ideas and opinion on what goes on on the screen and happened in reality.
The pace is slow, the action is minimal, the atmosphere the feelings are more important than the plot. And the budget is low. But the film is more than respectable, the director has a secure hand and a precise look, and the show-man who plays in it is a true actor.
