My Friend Ivan Lapshin

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Set in the Soviet Union during the early 1930s, My Friend Ivan Lapshin is narrated by a man who remembers his childhood in a communal apartment in a provincial town. Through his memories, we follow Ivan Lapshin, a dedicated and idealistic police inspector who strives to live honestly and uphold socialist values during a turbulent period. Lapshin and his colleagues work to dismantle a criminal gang that plagues the region, but the film's focus is less on action than on the texture of everyday life: the crowded communal living, the camaraderie, the small hopes, and the heavy political atmosphere of the pre-purge Soviet era. Lapshin develops feelings for Nina, a young actress who lives in the same communal space, but she is drawn instead to one of his colleagues. His unrequited love, along with the moral grayness of the system he serves, gradually wears on him.