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Andrei Konchalovsky produced this movie as his vision of his own country. His use of realism juxtaposed with personal flourishes renders what would otherwise be a simple love triangle into a political statement. The story of a young lame girl who has become pregnant by an essentially inept and irresponsible young man who will not marry her and her choice to have her child and raise it by herself rather than giving herself to a marriage with a man who loves her and will raise the child as his own are seen as a metaphor of the Soviet Union - with the child symbolizing the Soviet future. This makes the movie take on an entirely different quality than that at first glance, but even if you don't look beneath the veneer, the movie is excellent and the performances are all five-star quality.