This intriguing portrait of a woman ex-bomber pilot who is out of her element in the earth-bound boredom of postwar society was probably Shepitko's most controversial film. The generational conflicts explored in Wings and the deep divisions within Soviet society which the film exposed made it a focus for bitter debate. Nadezhda Petrovna--played with great depth and subtle humor by Maya Bulgakova--is a 42-year-old provincial school mistress and the unmarried guardian of an adopted daughter. Rigidity and an authoritarian manner are the painful defense she has developed in the midst of a generation seemingly blind to the political passions that inspired her own youth and made her a national hero in her day. As she wanders through the familiar terrain of her memories in an effort to reconcile them with an alien reality, Shepitko's imagery brilliantly captures the struggle, leading Variety's Ron Holloway (on viewing the film in its first Western screening in 1978) to call Shepitko “a master of rhythmic blending of reality and fantasy” and the film “a milestone in the development of the New Soviet Cinema.”