Siberia, Monamour

Siberia, late autumn. In an abandoned village in the taiga live old Ivan and his seven-year-old grandson Lyosha. Nobody else is left there. A pack of feral dogs roams the area and tears apart anything alive. Lyosha's closest friend is one of those dogs. A relative, Uncle Yuri, brings supplies from time to time. On one journey back the dogs attack Yuri and he dies. The food stops. Lyosha sees his grandfather shoot at the dog, runs, and falls into a dry well. Ivan cannot get him out alone and sets off through the taiga to find help. Slava Ross directs this Russian film of a hundred and two minutes, with Pyotr Zaychenko as Ivan. The emptying of the village and the distance to the army and the towns are part of the story; the film treats Siberia not as scenery but as the place people were left in.