Have you ever seen days when one errand after another is hurled your way, delaying a well-planned meeting — be it a shopping date, a dinner date, anything you have been looking forward to all week? There are days such as these, and there are fates, similar to these that shift the finish line further and further away. But what we do in between is what matters.

The White Sun Of The Desert (1970) is a film set around the end of the Russian Civil War. The protagonist Sukhov, a soldier from the Red Army, yearns to return to his wife, Katerina Matveyevna. When the war ends, he sets off across the desert, hoping to finally end the parting of many years. The movie rolls with doe-eyed Katerina, in a Red-riding-hood scarf, walking across meadows, sometimes carrying barrels of water on her shoulders and sometimes poignantly watching and waiting.