This is a story of a blind girl who gets a chance of a lifetime. A rich man offers to her the precious gift of the eyesight, provided that she marries him blindly. This gift opens her eyes on the grim truth of life.
Elena Mihailovna, having worked all her life in the only school of a provincial town, lives modestly in retirement. Unexpectedly she learns of a fatal diagnosis, which can at any moment end her life. Instead of an unbearable anticipation, she resolutely begins the preparation for her own death, in order to simplify the procedure for her son. She has not seen her only son for over five years because he worrks in the capital. Oleg is constantly busy, and he does not have time for his lonely mother. At the same time with all the new problems, the heroine receives as a gift a huge carp, which changes her life.
Five short love stories, which become a statement of the directors about love. A shoemaker, a reporter, a pavement hooker-in, a psychiatric patient and a young man released from prison are the main characters of the film, heroes in a time of no heroes. All of them have the important qualities of being openhearted and not afraid of loving.
어느 영화 감독이 한순간 마술처럼 18세기 초의 상트페테르부르크의 에르미타주 궁으로 가게 된다. 어느 누구도 감독을 보지 못하지만, 오로지 검은 옷을 입은 남자만이 감독을 본다. 검은 옷의 남자는 19세기에서 온 프랑스 외교관이였다. 감독과 외교관은 격동의 러시아 한가운데에서 놀라운 역사의 현장을 목격한다.
Vera Andreyevna and Grigory Petrovich are an elderly couple who have had a long and happy life together. One day in the market Vera Andreyevna runs into an untidy and half-drunk old man whom she recognizes with difficulty. It is Alyosha, who was in the same orphanage with her and who had been her first love. Reminiscences overwhelm them and stir their hearts. Alexei Ivanovich, who had lived a far from easy life, undergoes an amazing change. He begins to look younger and more orderly. Vera Andreyevna feels she is a woman again, a woman who has to make her choice.
The events of the film take place in a resort area South of the seaside city, beautiful and alien. The heroine of the film - girls orphanage for children with a sick spine, physical energy of the characters looking out in painfully cruel scheme of mutual relations. And finds cruel and unfair to the weaker......