Kosta Strandjev

A study in human psychology that uses five disparate characters from clearly defined social positions, this film offers as much insight into the society of a changing Bulgaria, as it does into the minds of individuals in conflict. The story centers around transporting a worker's corpse, in a truck, to the mountain village where he was born. In the truck is: a man who may be suffering from tuberculosis, and who has an unfaithful wife at home; a doctor (the intellectual); a bookkeeper worried over the salaries she pays out; a hermit picked up on the road; and the driver who is a rough-and-ready working-class symbol. The seeds for conflict are set both by the personalities of the five in the truck and by their social background. The director Christo Christov, acknowledges his debt to Henri-Georges Clouzot and the Wages of Fear, for inspiration in the treatment of human conflict, its development through a set storyline, and its resolution in each of the five cases.

Nine volunteers begin digging a tunnel through rugged mountain terrain. The group includes three miners. The others have come from different parts of the country for different reasons. When winter comes, a blizzard makes the road impassable and the truck with supplies cannot reach them in time. With only a hundred metres to dig, the tunnel collapsed. Everybody leaves the construction site, except the communist Damjan. In town they check in at the mine and are due to start work in two days. During these two days, one by one, they are overwhelmed with shame for leaving the tunnel, and finally return to Damjan to finish their work despite all the difficulties.