Farewell

Synopsis

On the ancient Angara River island of Matyora where generations of Russian peasant families have farmed and lived for three centuries, a massive hydroelectric dam project orders the entire village burned and flooded, following the fierce old babushka Darya who cleans and purifies her cottage one last time like a corpse for burial while government work crews tear down cemeteries and cut trees. Elem Klimov's transcendent, mystical environmental lament adapted from Valentin Rasputin, begun by his late wife Larisa Shepitko before her fatal car crash.