Vozvrashchenie Vasiliya Bortnikova (1953)

English titles: Vasili's Return; The Return of Vasili Bortnikov

A man returns home from the war to find his wife married to another man. The new husband steps aside and the old one resumes his life beside her and their two kids. He cannot shake his jealous feelings, though. He is made president of a kolkhoz -- a collective farm -- which is facing problems of productivity deriving mainly from the malfunctioning of tractors. An engineer is summoned to find the root of the problem.

This is an example of Soviet Socialist Realism. There is a didactic function which the movie sets itself to meet. One of the angles is the reconstruction of a fractured home. Another one deals with the inner workings of a collective farm. Several portions of the film are quite technical and may put some viewers to sleep. There are different moral lessons for the respective conjugal and farming subplots. In the former case, one recommends frankness and equilibrium in overcoming emotional problems; in the latter one, one is taught that seemingly minuscule errors may cause huge problems.

Rating: 41