Elem Klimov, film director and President of the Soviet Filmmakers Union, was our guest last month, when he introduced his feature Come and See. For an introduction to Larissa Shepitko, please see notes for Saturday, November 8. "Based on one of the most widely acclaimed novels in contemporary Soviet literature, Valentin Rasputin's Farewell to Matyora, the film adaptation was begun in 1978 by Larissa Shepitko, who died tragically with members of her crew while on location. Her husband Elem Klimov then assumed charge of the project and, after extending the story somewhat, finished the film in late 1982.... The film is set in Central Siberia, near Irkutsk; the title refers to an island's name with the extra connotation 'Mother Earth' attached to the translation of the word. This island is about to be submerged due to the swelling of the river before a newly completed dam, and with it will go some 300 years of traditions: the church, the cemetery, the mystic ancient tree, the village itself with all its quaint cottages. The population is to be transferred to high-rise apartments on the mainland, but the elderly women on the island (a kind of Greek chorus) decide to resist-and stay behind to disappear with the island in an enveloping mist... The images are overpowering in beauty and visual impact. Farewell mourns the passing of the old with its revered traditions and questions the new with its unproven speculations." Ronald Holloway, International Film Guide