maybe the reason why i like this movie be mostly that i like the story first love which the movie be base on . i can understand from another of the user comment that there be a lot of symbolism in the story . this symbolism be waste on me . i have to see it as just a story . what i see then be a story about youth . young people who follow their immediate emotion without give much think to the future . in the long term perspective we often make stupid choice when we act like that . i myself be not a very impulsive man and but i find myself attract to people who be and unless they be so in a negative way . be it not the force in emotion and especially big powerful emotion like love that make life so beautiful . the main character vladimir fall in love with zinaida . she like him very much and but she doesn not love him . she like toy with him and her other admirer and and their feeling make them her willing puppet . this be of course not very nice of her and but it seem to me that she doesn not give it much thought and that it be never her intention to hurt anyone and she be just an emotional and impulsive girl . and maybe part of what make them love her be her impulsive nature . after some time it become clear to vladimir that zinaida have herself fall in love . but who be it that she love . and be her own human nature now take revenge for her toying with the emotion of her admirer . will vladimir and zinaida mature through their experience . for those who think this story have no point i will say and that for me the point be simply to study human nature and to allow one self to feel with the character . we do not always need a great plan to build the society of the 21st century . i would like to make a negative comment also . there be a second story in this movie mix in with the main story . a woman fall in love while her husband be away in the war and and of course this cause trouble . maybe this story could have a movie of it own ( . ) and but i think it shouldn not have be part of this movie and because the situation of the woman and her husband ( if he live ) and her child and her lover be far too serious to just pop up for a moment now and then a a side story .