Knorre got furious when he saw his story changed on the set – a story that had been successfully staged at the Mossovet Theater in Moscow of 1944 – in what he called “a series of absurdities”. On the other hand, for Barnet reducing the script, reshaping its nature, was par for the course. But in bringing the vicissitudes of Varja to the screen, aside from the disappearance of the lyrical love motif (patched into a cacophonous finale) and many other elements, Barnet’s real “betrayal” consisted in having upset the principle of podvig, the extreme act of heroism and self-sacrifice that the protagonist was supposed to embody according to the official version. Once again the director makes his favorite kind of heroine the central figure – a figure of unspoiled innocence, a childlike quality that critics would discredit as “childishness.”
The close up of Varja, who first appears on screen with a feeble and desperate voice, is a striking contrast with the fierce and fearless depictions of other female figures at that time. Irina Radčenko, a new actress struggling with her first film, has an expressiveness that is more similar to Lillian Gish of Broken Blossoms. Along with her is the complex character of Colonel Balz, admirably played by Barnet, who begins to undermine the usual stereotype of Nazis, reflecting the general spirit of the film.
The setting is fundamental, revealed by the thin figure of Varja as she walks barefoot in the rubble, clinging to crumbling walls. A rugged, confusing scenario with powerful symbolic meaning that Barnet created out of the old pavilions of the Ere- van Studios destroyed by a fire.