With its avant-garde sense and formalist freedom, The Long Farewell was destined to become a symbol of Soviet censorship.
The Long Farewell by Kira Muratova depicts a seemingly banal story of a jealous and possessive mother and her aloof and lonely son. Growing up without a father, who had left the family long ago, Sasha finally visits him during the summer holidays to work with him on an archaeological expedition. After that, the young man decides to become independent and moves to Novosibirsk, but his mother tries to keep Sasha even more persistently. The story grows into a wonderful and frightening analysis of alienation between genders, and misunderstanding between generations against the background of the even more frighteningly bleak and dehumanized Soviet reality.
The Long Farewell was labeled as dissident, counterrevolutionary, and anti-Soviet and banned for 16 years. Because of this, the Head of the Odesa Film Studio was discharged as well as the chairman of the Ukrainian State Committee for Cinematography. Muratova was permanently suspended from film shooting and had to work as a librarian. Shot in 1971, the picture was released only in 1987.