Grigori Aredakov

This film is not about Oleg Yankovsky in the usual sense: not a biography of a great actor, not a review of roles. And not the sharp facts from his personal life. Although it's all in the film: a dramatic fate, unknown pages of biography. Like any great actor, he possessed a secret - he did not tell both in the movies and in life. But his main gift was not even acting. Yankovsky was talented at making people fall in love with him. I wanted to look at him again and again: that's why they loved him and still love him.

The film focuses on the relationship between Casimir and the monk Justin. If the former is looking for answers to the questions of existence, the latter is sure that he has already comprehended all the mysteries. Ambitious and domineering, Justin believes that people should be kept in constant fear. Kazimir, on the other hand, strives for freedom of the spirit and comes to the conclusion that people pray to the wrong God and are therefore unhappy. These antipodes value each other in their own way. Justin, sending Casimir to the stake, loses the only person close to him. In his last moments, Kazimir does not hate Justin.

The long-term war with Sparta ends. The power and prosperity of Athens has sunk into the past; in an atmosphere of general despair and irritation, democracy, tyranny, and oligarchy replace each other. Against this background, the last, tragic period of Socrates’ life takes place.