Konchalovsky's excursion into the epic form (presented in its full four-and-one-half hours) sweeps up three generations, six decades of history, in showing how life in the farthest reaches of the Soviet Union is, and is not, touched by time and events. In a Siberian hamlet, a Hatfield-McCoy feud heats up the snowy winters and sends sexual sparks through the glistening summers. The antipathy between the increasingly wealthy Solomins and the perpetually poor Ustyuzhanins inevitably leads to marriage, but also to murder. When the Revolution comes, belatedly and ragtag, it is both daunting and strangely familiar to the village where its themes have been played out for years. Konchalovsky anchors the passing of time with lyric timelessness and startling perspective. The hero's father is the village mystic, cutting a road through the trees to a star; his message, "we walk on living things, we cut down living things, we live on living things" will be best understood by his Soviet descendants who will plow the same road with tanks, and be met by ghosts. History is only the entr'acte (revolution, war, and Soviet progress go by in a flash) where nature has the last word. Among sterling performances are the director's brother Nikita Mikhalkov as the orphan turned oilman, Alexei, and the two female stars, Nathalia Andreitchenko as the earthy, rifle-toting Anastassia, and Ludmila Gourtchenko as her much-subdued modern counterpart Taya.