This is probably the most unpopular film of Georgiy Daneliya. Everybody knows and loves "I step through Moscow", "Mimino", "Autumn Marathon", "Kin-dza-dza", but how many pepople have seen "Tears were falling" even nowdays when everything is publicly available and everyone can watch anything he wants? And in Soviet period, even more so: at first the picture was "put on a shelf", then it was finally released, but with a "second screen", i.e. on the periphery alone and only in the morning time.
The movie was not liked by anyone, neither by the authorities, nor by critics, nor by the audience. And there were quite obvious reasons for that. Daneliya was always distinguished by a sharp, accurate sociological analysis, but softened it with gentle irony and a certain amount of sympathy for his characters, which made it easier for the viewers to perceive a generally gloomy picture. But not this time. The opening credits present the definition "sad fairy tale", but this is intentional deceit, a mocking trick, because sadness implies a sort of lyrical melancholy - emotion is akin to nostalgia, which has a certain degree of "pleasantness". But here there is no sadness, and there is only a merciless and completely disappointing diagnosis.
The prologue says that the protagonist got a splinter of a broken mirror in his eye, because of which he began to see things in a distorted light noticing everything bad only. But if you face the truth, you see that he's right, that everything is as it is, that this is substantially the way we live, and this intro was introduced just as a distraction, because seeing your own reflection in the "funhouse mirror" of an incisive satire is an extremely unpleasant sight for anyone. A fresh, clear-eyed view on social reality makes the hero's life unbearable, and he, in turn, spoils and ruins the life of all his closest, just familiar and even unfamiliar people. He commits the most severe "sin" - violates the implied social convention, certain taboos on what you are not allowed to say and how you are not let to act, and such a thing is never excused anywhere.
According to the initial script, closer to the final, the protagonist falls into paranoia and commits suicide. But in this form, the film would have probably been cut off already at the very beginning, therefore, in order to go through censorship, authors slightly softened the ending trying, however, to avoid "happy end" [which, in that case, would have looked completely ridiculous].
Even back then, in the 82nd, the makers of the picture realized where "Our steam train flies forward" to, and had neither the slightest illusions about those who were leading it, nor about those who were putting sticks in the wheels, being aware that both cases were being basically done by the same persons.
