In the distant 1980, I first watched the first episodes of this significant film in Soviet cinema. From its first frames we find ourselves in the Baltics, more specifically, in Latvia. The Baltic Sea, beautiful in its northern beauty, endless beaches of golden-white sand, framed by a necklace of high dunes with copper-trunked pine groves, the healing sea air saturated with iodine… In nature, as always, everything is majestic, reasonable and proportionate. It is only in the human community that there is unrest… Members of a fishing cooperative are unhappy with the fact that their management in the city of Riga has completely monopolized purchasing prices, which results in extremely low wages, and their work at sea is hard and dangerous. And someone skims the cream off the difference between the purchase, wholesale and retail prices, drives expensive cars, carouses in restaurants, dresses and pleases gorgeous women. According to many fishermen, Ozols is also to blame for this – the manager of their artel, who lives much richer than them, and of course has his share of their harsh exploitation.
Against this backdrop, in the second half of the 1930s, events of gigantic global scale are approaching the small country of Latvia, as a result of which it finds itself between a “hammer and a hard place”. From the West, Germany, striving for world domination, looms over this important geographical area, and from the East – another superpower – the Soviet Union. The sympathies of Latvians during this period are sharply divided. It is clear to everyone that no one will leave their small Latvia alone, in its former patriarchal world. The rich and well-off, for the most part, turn their gaze to Germany in the hope that an alliance with it will save their capital from the “gray masses” ready to rebel at any moment. A significant part of Latvians: fishermen, workers, sailors, and part of the intelligentsia connect their hopes for a better life with the Soviet Union, sympathies for which are increasingly growing. The same situation is in the fishing village, where most of the events of the film take place. The country’s government is in the same dichotomy, as if it does not understand that mutually exclusive political flirtation with both Germany and the Soviet Union will ultimately lead to its own liquidation.
But no matter how political collisions agitate the human community in this pre-storm period, the villagers still have room for other human feelings. The film’s protagonist, fisherman Artur Banga (played with talent by Juozas Kiselius), who dreams of becoming a captain, has loved the daughter of the artel manager Ozols, Marta (the pretty and charming actress Lilita Ozoliņa), since childhood. But old Ozols, who has come closer to the world of the well-to-do and rich, needs another son-in-law, for example, the son of a successful entrepreneur from their village, Richard Losberg (actor Romualdas Romanauskas). This brilliant young man of the world, who recently received a university education in Germany, became his father’s partner in managing textile factories. Moreover, Richard is clearly not indifferent to Marta. This is where the love collision of the film begins, complicated by the real social contradictions of that Latvian society. In order to get rid of Artur, Ozols uses the fact that he is friends with a teacher who does not hide his antipathy towards bourgeois Latvia and calls himself a friend of fishermen. And Artur, when he is arrested, becomes not only Richard’s rival, but also his political opponent. After all, in human life everything is extremely interconnected: love and hate, good and evil, generosity and meanness. Richard, who seems happy that Marta has become his wife, soon feels completely deceived. He clearly realizes that Marta will never love him. And besides, Artur’s supporters have taken away not only the factories, but also his homeland. He is forced to stay in Germany, carrying out various dirty assignments for the new owners. Here too, he feels deceived, fully realizing that “he is only a pawn in a big political game.” His spiritual break with Marta deepens even more when they return with the “masters of the new order” – the Germans – to occupied Latvia. All this further increases his hatred for Arthur and his comrades, who are fighting the German occupiers in every possible way. And a few years later, Richard, fleeing from the advancing Soviet army, tries to take Marta with him, whom he continues to love. But Marta remains in her homeland, although Richard warns her that “for those who are with your Arthur, you are only the wife of an accomplice of the occupiers.” And the love of Arthur and Marta, separated not only by distance, but also by socio-political contradictions, experiences new obstacles. New trials await them and oh, how long the road to their meeting in the endless sand dunes is. What could Marta say to the former fisherman, and in 1946 already the “new master of life” – a special agent (talentedly played by actor Karlis Trencis), who sends her to Siberia with many other “unreliable Latvians”? Nothing … After all, formally she remained Richard’s wife.
And Marta, who during the war, together with Arthur, saved the life of a Soviet intelligence officer, was exiled with her young son Edgar to Siberia, a land of severe frosts and gigantic snow-covered deserted spaces. What the formalist special agent did not understand, ordinary Russian women understood perfectly well that Marta was not an accomplice of the Germans, but only a victim of gigantic historical events and an extremely contradictory and ambiguous time. In exile, Marta especially becomes close to the owner of the house where she was sent to stay. This stern Siberian woman has been waiting for her husband, who went missing in the war, for many years. The two women, despite many differences, unite in their grief, suffering and unrequited love. It is the residents of the village who save Marta’s son in a severe blizzard. Marta’s spiritual fortitude and the kindness of ordinary Russian people help her and her son survive in extremely harsh natural conditions. And then comes the period of rehabilitation of many innocent victims. Marta and Edgar return to their native Latvia. Their life gradually improves. One day, Marta is told that a certain Mr. Losberg, a businessman from the FRG, is looking for her. The meeting with Richard does not change anything in Marta’s life. She only feels a stronger desire to find Arthur, despite numerous unsuccessful attempts. And one day, the captain of a large sea vessel, Arthur Banga, who has just returned from a voyage, meets Marta and his son Edgar. The long road in the dunes finds its logical conclusion.
The wonderful music of Raimonds Pauls, the excellent directing work of Alois Brenč and the talented script by Dimitri Vasiliu and Oleg Rudnev help to deeply understand and comprehend this multi-layered narrative.
Dear reader! Watch this film! After all, each of us has our own long road in the dunes.
