Based on A. Platonov’s story. Everybody in the village was waiting for electrician Grinya and he came. However, the electric motor burnt out and citizens lost their hope but decided to work better. Grinya tries to help citizens of the village. Source : www.mosfilm.ru
This film is part of a diptych called The Beginning of an Unknown Century with the film The Angel by Andrey SMIRNOV
Originally, The Beginning of an Unknown Century was conceived as a series celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution. Three medium-length films by three young directors, Larissa Chepitko, Andrey Smirnov and Guenrikh Gabay, adapting three great Russian writers. But censorship will dismantle the film: the segment of Gabai will be broadcast on television, while those of Chepitko and Smirnov will be banned. The latter were inspired by Andrei Platonov and Yuri Olecha, two authors banned from writing under Stalin. No doubt their vision of the Revolution was too harsh in the eyes of those in power.
What remains of this essay of high level experimental production therefore becomes, twenty years later, a diptych. For his segment The Homeland of Electricity , Larissa Chepitko recounts the hard work, tireless efforts of a revolutionary technician who wishes to bring electricity and water to his arid village. The lyricism of the subject is supported by black and white images, where white, more than bright, becomes as hot as the earth it describes. The Beginning of an unknown century is a rarity within an unknown filmography.