Days of Eclipse 1988, 137 min., colour Lenfilm Screenplay: Yury Arabov Peotr Kadochnikov Arcady Strugatsky Boris Strugatsky Camera: Sergey Yurizditsky Sound: Vladomir Persov Production Design: Yelena Amshinskaya Editor: Leda Semyonova Starring: Alexey Ananishnov also Featuring: Eskender Umarov Irina Sokolova Vladimir Zamansky Kirill Dudkin Viktor Belovolsky Composer: Yury Khanin The soundtrack includes music by A. Shnitke, folk music. “…Those who are into the science fiction of Strugatsky should reconcile themselves to the fact that this film (as well as Tarkovsky's Stalker) is not a screen version of the novel, but a totally independent cinema work of its own value. It is important to note that the main idea of the literary source — the idea of how hard it is for a creative person to live in the world of totalitarian mentality, in the world of unbearable pressure of the authorities — this idea has been picked up by the director and transferred to an absolutely new situation. However, in the film this idea sounds very convincing and makes an even more terrifying impression, than while being presented in the novel (the reader may be distracted by some outside circumstances as well as questions and puzzles offered by the writer). You will not find any puzzles in Sokurov's film. The filmmaker has depicted a strange and pretty frightening world, where a man has to live, work and create despite everything, and that is not easy at all”. Boris Strugatsky, author of the novel A Milliard Years before the End of the World (from a radio interview) Summary The film Days of Eclipse is based on a novel by famous Soviet science fiction writers — brothers Arcady and Boris Strugatsky. The action has been transferred to the Central Asia where a young Russian doctor gives treatment to children and tries his hand at writing. Introducing us a young contemporary at the crossroads (for the first time in Sokurov's work), this film becomes the first part of a cinema trilogy. This character, whose formative years pass in the situation of broken and showing its cracks way of life, becomes a link between three of Sokurov's films. The whole 'trilogy' is joined together by the bitter irony regarding worn–out sacral symbols. Films Days of Eclipse, The Second Circle, The Stone, made in different years, are linked up with each other by one common plot: permanent co–existence of real everyday life, of so to say daily routine, with messages or messengers from Nowhere. The young athlete from Days of Eclipse played by young non–professional performer Alexei Ananishnov is no less an archaic symbol of the former power of the collapsed Soviet empire than a recording of Brezhnev's speech sounding in the film or huge plaster cast Hammer and Sickle sticking out in the desert. Dmitry Malyanov from Strugatsky's novel A Milliard Years before the End of the World has nothing in common with the character of Days of Eclipse beside the name. In fact, for Sokurov's hero the end of the world has already come and the border of this end has fallen on his life. The character who has been brought to the world of alien climate, alien speech, alien customs, learns not to be surprised at the cases of violence against others and himself — in order to survive, speaks to a dead body, tames and feeds exotic reptiles, and, on top of that, meets an angel appearing as a child. This film was successful with the cinema audience of Perestroika years. Alexei Ananishnov later played the main part in one more film by Sokurov Mother and Son. The film has been listed by the European Cinema Academy among 100 best movies of the XX century. Alexandra Tuchinskaya English translation by Anna Shoulgat, © 2002. Prizes and awards: 1988. Special Award Felix of the European Cinema Academy to the composer Y. Khanin. 1988. NIKA Award of the Filmmakers' Union of the USSR to the Director of Sound V. Persov as Best Director of Sound. 1989. Laureate of the competition for Best Russian film of the year. Award of the Filmmakers' Union of the USSR to S. Yurizditsky as Best Director of Photography.