Director Herz Frank, whose earlier documentary, The Forbidden Zone, questioned methods of rehabilitation at a Soviet penal colony, returns with a sharply critical examination of a society that responds to crime by inflicting still further cruelties. "Convicted of a double murder, during an impulsive robbery, a young man named Dolgov now sits on deathrow awaiting the result of appeals and legal maneuvers. Dolgove, a handsome youth with long hair, has a rather too common background among Soviet delinquents: abandonment by parents at an early age, growing up unloved and unsupervised in ugly block-tenements, and adrift in black-marketeering. Shorn of his hair and all disguises, Dolgov talks grudgingly to the camera, painfully. It is all terribly sad and futile. Over the months, as the camera grinds on without pity, Dolgov and his defenses breakdown. Dolgov clenches his fists, bows his shaved head, his jaw working, his body trembling. His final words-'I love you all. Love, that's all that matters.' " -Variety