In this film version of one of Valentin Rasputin’s stories, the local grandeur is pathetic +!+ in the non-pejorative meaning of the word. The film looks at the evacuation of the inhabitants of a Siberian village on the island of Machora. The island is to disappear under the water of a dam lake because a power station is to be built. We witness the last summer in the existence of the village and of several pantheistic rituals. The film provides a portrait of the battle between ‘modern’ powers and life in the countryside which has remained unchanged for hundreds of years.Originally Klimov’s wife was to make the film. but she died in a car crash just before shooting was to start.
