We'll Live Till Monday

A school in Moscow, three days. Ilya Melnikov teaches history: in his forties, he went through the war, he is a good teacher and he has had enough. He is thinking of leaving. Natalya, a young English teacher who was once his pupil, is in love with him, and the school is talking about it. In the same week a student describes happiness in an essay, and what she has written throws the staffroom into an argument. She will not take it back. Melnikov steps in. Those three days bring out what both the children and the teachers actually believe. Stanislav Rostotsky directs the Soviet film; a hundred and six minutes, with Vyacheslav Tikhonov as Melnikov. It was made in 1968 and was among the most watched films in the Soviet Union that year, remembered for describing school and teaching without idealising either.