The strange title is explained by the fact that there are two films in the film: one is about a real day in the life of the real Moscow architect Alexander Petrovich Chernov, his mental crisis; and the other is Chernov’s fiction. There is a different fate, a different country, a different life....
Originally called World '68, later retitled The World of Today Romm’s film was conceived as an impassioned, large-scale essay on the origins of the 20th century and the subsequent reality the disappointed director felt slipping away from him. The film itself slipped away from him and was left...