Antarctic tale

The diesel electric ship " Ob " is heading to the shores of Antarctica to deliver a new shift to the Soviet Antarctic stations and pick up the already wintered polar explorers. A group led by Sergei Semyonov, who spent the year conducting research at the Novolazarevskaya station, also awaits the way home. Polar explorers should arrive at the unused Lazarev station, which is closer to the coast, and expect an icebreaker there. However, before sending home, the group of Semenov was entrusted with the last task - to depart by plane to the Vostok intracontinental station and to re-conserve it in a few days so that the station could receive scientists for the next wintering (during the year the station was mothballed, since managed to deliver fuel on time before the start of the polar winter).

Five are sent to Vostok: Semenov himself, an experienced polar explorer and strict leader; his old friend and colleague, many wintering meteorologist Andrei Garanin; doctor Alexander Barmin, who treats his comrades not only with medicines, but also with a good mood; the young mechanic Venya Filatov, who is in love “at a distance” with a famous movie actress ( Natalya Fateeva actually plays herself in one of the episodes of the film); and the more experienced mechanic Zhenya Dugin, whom Semenov considers an indispensable person during any wintering. Due to unforeseen circumstances caused by the harsh climatic conditions of the Vostok region and Antarctica as a whole, a group of polar explorers is trapped - without heat, communications and any outside help at an uninhabited station in a 40-degree frost.

Meanwhile, the very possibility of sailing from Antarctica to the Ob is in question due to the atypically difficult ice situation off the coast of the mainland. For polar explorers who spent a whole year in a narrow team, torn from their families and from the whole world, the threat of a second winter is a difficult test. The contradictions accumulated in the collective are aggravated.

Ultimately, the key to survival in difficult climatic conditions and, no less important, in difficult moral and psychological conditions are fortitude, willingness to test, willingness to sacrifice for the sake of comrades. In situations atypical even for the harsh life of wintering people, seemingly weak people, who were considered a threat to the peace of the team, show restraint and resourcefulness, reliable and “hassle-free” people have previously shown cowardice and a penchant for adaptability.

The series of works by Vladimir Sanin, “The Call of the Polar Latitudes,” which tells about the severe struggle of a person with harsh environmental conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic , includes five novels written from 1975 to 1982: “Seventy-two degrees below zero”, “Trapped” "," It is difficult to let Antarctica "," For those who are in a drift! "And" Point of return " ^[2] . At the same time, three of them - "Trapped", "It is difficult to let Antarctica", "For those who are in a drift!" - comprise compositional unity, being united by common heroes, the other two stories are not connected with them.

The film was shot on the basis of two stories (“Trapped”, “Antarctica Difficult to Release”), since the third, “For those who are drifting!”, Is no longer in Antarctica , but on a drifting ice floe in the Arctic Ocean (although and with the same heroes). However, co-authors of the script of the film, Vladimir Sanin and Ivan Menzheritsky , some of the motives from the final part of the trilogy (concerning the personality of Dugin, Gruzdev’s former life) were still included in the script.

• other.

• Director: Sergey Tarasov
• Script writers: Ivan Menzheritsky , Vladimir Sanin
• Operator: Mikhail Koroptsov
• Production Designer: Yuri Kladienko

• Composer: Tikhon Khrennikov
• Lyricist: Mikhail Matusovsky
• Conductor: Vladimir Vasiliev
• Solo on the violin: Igor Oistrakh
• Songs: Leonid Serebrennikov

Two songs sounded in the film (the plot is performed by the mechanic Venya Filatov): “The white iceberg is floating on the wave” and “How sparkling in the huge refrigerator ...” The first of them was subsequently performed by Leonid Serebrennikov at the festival “ Song of the Year ” —1980.