In 1866, writer Lev Tolstoy met on a train with Lieutenant Grigory Kolokoltsev, on his way to his place of service, a regiment in Tula province. Kolokoltsev was an admirer of the writer and was received in Tolstoy's estate, Yasnaya Polyana. In one of his visits he told Tolstoy about a tragic incident in his regiment: the clerk Shabunin hit the company commander, for which he was facing a court martial and threatened with execution (this barbaric rule was not limited to the Russian army). No one (except for a few diehards) wished Shabunin dead, but circumstances brought his demise closer. His presence was inconvenient for everyone; from the sergeant major, whom he helped hide the theft of soldiers' money, to the colonel himself, facing an audit.
Tolstoy volunteered to be the defendant's lawyer and made a brilliant speech at the trial. Kolokoltsev was a member of the jury deciding Shabunin's fate and was faced with a stark choice between his conscience and the furthering of his career, which is the center of the movie. The original title is History of a Destination, Kolokoltsev's destination to his regiment.
The film shows what could be the root of Shabunin's plight, soldiers in relative reclusion in peacetime. Not unlike in a jail the strong are left alone, the weak are endlessly abused and bullied and sadistic, superannuated officers vent their frustrations by forcing soldiers into senseless exercises and discouraging good initiatives (such as alphabetization of the rank-and-file). We then begin to understand how Shabunin's rage led him to his fateful fit of violence.
Out of this material, director Avdotya Smirnova has assembled a period piece where the reconstruction of time and place is flawless, supported by excellent cinematography. Acting is uniformly good for all concerned, especially from the principals Aleksey Smirnov (Kolokoltsev) and Evgeniy Kharitonov (Tolstoy). A movie to watch.
