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The nine days with which the film is concerned are in the life of the physicist, Dmitri Gusev, who has twice exposed himself to radiation and who endangers his life by taking a third, unnecessary risk.
It is the old story of the man with a consuming ambition, beside which he holds everything, his own life included, at a pin's fee. It is a remarkably taut and gripping film and it is to Romm's credit that it assumes a universality that is rare in contemporary Soviet films.
Several ideological conflicts are apparent whether surgeons should experiment with human beings who have been exposed lo radiation; the dash of loyalties between a mans work for the State and mankind, and for his family: whether or not science can always progress and break fresh barriers. Romm manages to weave these deftly into the fabric of the film. However, most striking are the visuals the splendidly composed shots in which machines effectively dwarf the beings that created them, and yet showing the characters inseparable from their environment. There is a sympathetic performance from Smoktounovski (Kozintcvs Hamlet) but is is Alexei Batalov who as the unromanlic twentieth-century hero, gives the film its spirit.
Grand Prix, Karlovy-Vary Festival.