In their youth, they loved each other, but broke up. Ilya got married, became a doctor, Sasha learned to become an engineer, got married. And now they are together again, at a small, deaf station. They introduced themselves as husband and wife. In fact, while he is married to another, and she has the experience of a failed marriage. For eight days they will be in a remote stop where no one knows them and no one will interfere with love...
Acting
Rudnaya and Kulagin's glances say what dialogue cannot
Cinematography
Bleak railway station becomes a character itself
Direction
Smirnov lets silence do the heavy lifting
Director
Andrey Smirnov
Natalya Rudnaya
Aleksandra Nikitina
Leonid Kulagin
Ilya Yumashev
Natalya Gundareva
Dusya
Aleksandr Fatyushin
Eduard
Lyudmila Maksakova
Margo
Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Viktor Skobkin
Zoya Mokeyeva
Tanya
Mikhail Bychkov
beer bar visitor
Andrey Dudarenko
taxi driver
Igor Kashintsev
'intelligent'
Yuriy Kuzmenkov
police chief
Valery Lysenkov
beer bar visitor
Galina Komarova
girl at the post office (uncredited)
Tatyana Reshetnikova
girl at the post office (uncredited)
Vera Burlakova
mother with children (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
A rare Soviet film that dared suggest personal happiness might matter more than social duty—released during the stagnation era when such questions were dangerous.
The eight-day structure mirrors Chekhov's compressed timelines; Smirnov studied under Mikhail Romm, inheriting his mentor's belief that landscape reflects interior lives.
SU
