FIVE THINGS ABOUT A SOVIET FILM

1 HOW TO CELEBRATE THE REVOLUTION?

As President Vladimir Putin struggles to come up with a way to celebrate the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that defined modern Russia, a 1960 Soviet film surfaced on the Internet that evokes a poignant note about the meaning of 100 years of Soviet rule.

2 IN THE YEAR 2017

Plucked from the family collection of St. Petersburg resident Sergei Pozdnyakov, the 45-pane film strip, entitled In the Year 2017, recounts a day in the life of Igor, a boy who lives in a futuristic Moscow.

3 THE SETTING

If you go by the imaginations of V. Strukova and V. Shevchenko, the authors of the film, the U.S.S.R.’s achievements were awesome. Space ships can take you to the stars. Humans harness the energy of the Earth’s core and we have figured out how to control the weather. The “imperialists” have destroyed themselves — the remaining few having been driven off to a remote Pacific island — the Soviet Union has created “atomic trains” that traverse the Bering Strait, and the dream of reversing the course of great Siberian rivers has been realized.

4 THE PLOT

Scientists are perfecting flying power stations that can control weather, and Igor’s dad works at the Institute of Weather Management. The cutting edge of technology is “meson energy,” a theoretical type of atomic energy, and one day Igor’s dad gets some bad news. The last imperialists have tested a forbidden meson weapon, but the test backfires. The explosion not only blew up the island, it has created a noxious cloud that threatens to blot out life everywhere.

5 HAPPY ENDING

Igor’s dad springs into action. He gets permission to fly one of the newfangled weather-control stations, and darned if he doesn’t fly that thing right to the heart of the black muck, destroying it and saving the world!