Ostensibly an allegory on Soviet industry, as symbolized by the poor quality of a nail in a soldier's boot which leads to the defeat of a military unit on maneuvers, this film was banned, its symbolism having been lost on the literal minded who felt it reflected poorly on the military preparedness of the Red Army. But perhaps more threatening than its subject was its style: "The film came at a time when other directors had already begun to feel the chill of criticism for abstract films" (Alexander Birkos, Soviet Cinema). Indeed, the camera offers nothing less than a study of Man's Fate, as personified by the hapless wearer of the eponymous boot. In the midst of the thrusts and explosions of war (cinematically rendered), here he is, as in a dream, on a lone journey across fields and mountains with only one good shoe, until he comes to an interminable, impassible barbed-wire fence lined with jangling tin cans (we can "hear" them in the silence). More Kafkaesque is his court martial, a "show trial" in every sense as a marching band performs in the courtroom! This extraordinarily beautiful film led to a seven-year period of inactivity of Kalatozov.