most people review this excellent film by regis wargnier ( indochine ) clearly understand the backdrop of a soviet union in the grip of a national paranoia that flow from stalin himself and infect everything from the high position of party power to the most banal and mundane aspect of daily life . the film explore the destructive force that a monstrous ideology can have on ordinary people and artist and athlete and and even on love itself . stalin soviet union in 1946 be everything this movie portray it a and bad . this be not some anti soviet propaganda film by any stretch and and people who think it be need to attend to some history of the time and place . literally million of return soviet émigrés and soldier be either execute outright or sent to the gulag on various trump up charge like action detrimental to the state and espionage . there be no one as paranoid a stalin and and he either believe his own fear and or he want everyone else to believe them . probably both be true . that be why i welcome this film which tell the story of a russian émigré physician and his french wife and child who accept the deadly invitation of repatriation to the motherland . against this background of terror and repression and and despair we be make to watch what the pressure of the system can do to one family . alexei and marie and and serioia go from what must have be a comfortable and bourgeois life in france to a nightmare when they end up and thanks to alexei be a physician and in kiev . the story go into detail about how alexei have to behave against his wife expectation unrealistic and it turn out and and very dangerous to boot in order to fashion the possibility of escape . the film have a very real feel to it and and one can believe that what we be see be what really happen . i be a bit astonished that people today either know nothing of this period and or they actually think that the film be unfair to the soviet . the preposterousness of this idea can only be cure with information and but the willfully blind will remain so regardless of hundred of thousand of archival page to the contrary . this film be true to it subject and and if you can sit through the nail biting drama where an nkvd agent seem to appear on every corner you will be reward . an excellent movie full of the pain and heartbreak and and eventual triumph over evil .