About the film
Andrei Buzykin teaches and translates literature. He loves his wife, he loves Alla, the young typist he is seeing, and he cannot refuse anyone a favour, from a lazy colleague to a Danish professor who drags him on morning runs.
Danelia's 'sad comedy' follows Buzykin as he runs in circles through autumn Leningrad, lying to everyone to keep everyone happy and making everyone unhappy.
It is one of the most grown-up Soviet comedies, and its picture of the late-Soviet intelligentsia is wonderfully precise.
Did you know?
- It won the Golden Shell at San Sebastián in 1979.
- The Danish professor is played by Norbert Kuchinke, a real German journalist based in Moscow.
- Alexander Volodin adapted his own play for the screen.
