The history of this film is cloaked in mystery. “Lost” in the confusing handling of films during the evacuation, it was finally shown at the first complete retrospective about the director in 1992 at the Musei Kino in Moscow with the help of the Gosfil’mofond, which had salvaged the negative.
There is no doubt that the near to non-existent script (in fact, only an attempt of playwright Kapler to work on Pavlenko’s story outline entitled Mstiteli [The Avengers]) allowed Barnet to reach visionary and surrealist heights highly unusual for the times. Slavnyj malyj, also known as Novgorodcy, has all the ingredients of a comedy: the love theme that evolves with funny misunderstandings, bizarre characters, singing duets and little gags. The film would not be complete without the canonical figure of the aviator, even if French, and a finale ending with the arrival of the Soviet air fleet. The thick forest, with its role as a safe haven for the resistance group, is a pretext for creating that human dimension of pure simplicity so dear to Barnet. A community in which life is captured in its everyday evolution and where the absence of fiery words against the enemy deepens the contrast with war’s unnaturalness.