This movie is actually two different stories. One is Bunin's short story Sunstroke which is shown in a beautiful and poetic way in the movie. It represents the past, old Russia, the time Bunin never dropped in his mind. The other is taken from his famous anti Bolshevism book Cursed Days. This part is shown in the movie, in a wet and muddy way, about a group of old officers waiting for their destiny after signed their declarations of surrender.
It is understandable that the director tried to divide these two stories. Old is good, elegant, beautiful, lovely, honestly. New is chaotic, dirty, brutal, empty. Although one may not fully agree with it, but this is what Ivan Bunin's understanding of Bolshevism Revolution and the opinion is widely accepted after the collapse of Soviet Russia. Nikita Mikhalkov's most famous movies are almost about the same attitude.
But the director also used his movie to pay tribute to old Soviet movie traditions. There's an astonishing shot of a baby carriage rolling downsteps, which is obviously something reminding Eisenstein. There's also certain images reminding Bondalchuk.
So far there's no problem with the two stories go in parallel. But at the very end the stories tried to reach a point of combination. This became so hard to believe that the climax felt a little bit strange.
Still it's a great movie. Despite its length, the storytelling speed is extremely well that one hardly felt the time's gone. It might also be one element the director had in mind. Time went without raising attention, old time went like river never comes back.
