Peasants

When Pavel went into the army his mother wrote him a letter: Nastya, his fiancée, was no longer waiting for him. The letter was not true, but Pavel believed it and did not go back to his home town. Years later he comes to the village for his father's funeral. What he learns there changes his life: Nastya has died, three children are left behind, and the eldest is his daughter. Iskra Babich's film reached a wide audience in the Soviet Union. Aleksandr Mikhaylov plays Pavel. The telling blames nobody; even the mother is not ill-meaning, she only thinks she is protecting her son. The film's real question is this: is responsibility something a person chooses, or something set in front of them.