Wounded Game (1977) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Alexey returns to Odessa as an adult writer to search for his two brothers whom he barely remembers. After growing up in an orphanage following his father's death on the front and his mother's suicide when he was an infant, he wants to piece together the family that the war scattered. His search is described as quiet and stubborn, driven by a need to reconnect with a past that memory itself seems to have erased.

• Alexey Bartenev
• Odessa
• brothers
• search
• family
• war orphans

When Natasha visited Denis, who had been adopted by a high-ranking Party official, he greeted her with cold reserve and offered no warmth or details about himself. Years later, Denis admits that he remembered everything all along but initially chose to pretend he did not know her. His behavior was likely influenced by the fear and scar tissue of the war era, acknowledging his true family background could have threatened his privileged adopted position during a time when such connections were politically dangerous.

• Denis Kuskov
• Natasha
• adoption
• Party official
• family visit
• coldness

Natasha died in 1947, which remains a significant loss that casts a shadow over the surviving memories of the family. After she volunteered to join Alexey in the state shelter to stay together, her death occurred just two years later. The film does not specify the exact circumstances of her death, but it marks the final separation of the siblings and haunts Alexey's journey to find his remaining brothers.

• Natasha
• death
• 1947
• orphanage
• Alexey
• siblings

When Alexey and the other children attempted to steal food from an apartment by using Natasha as a distraction, Alexey slipped in via the balcony. A neighbor who happened to be a policeman caught him and handed him over to a state shelter for orphans. This event marked Alexey's entry into the institutional care system and separated him from his sister Natasha, though she later chose to join him there.

• Alexey
• policeman
• orphanage
• theft
• balcony
• caught
• Natasha

Natasha volunteered to join her brother Alexey in the state shelter for orphans specifically to stay together. Her decision was driven by loyalty and the bond between siblings who had already lost their parents and were struggling to survive on the streets of Odessa. The choice underscores how the children prioritized their relationship over any chance of a different, potentially better life apart from each other.

• Natasha
• orphanage
• Alexey
• together
• siblings
• choice
• survival

Sergey Pogartsev, one of Alexey's elder brothers, became a habitual criminal with a life shadowed by repeated prison terms. The film suggests his path was shaped by the harsh circumstances of postwar life as an orphan in Odessa, where children had to steal to survive. His criminal life represents one of the divergent fates that war and displacement created among the siblings, contrasting sharply with Denis's privileged adoption.

Foreshadowing: Earlier scenes of children stealing bread and food establish that survival on the streets often required illegal acts.

• Sergey Pogartsev
• criminal
• prison
• orphanage
• postwar
• survival
• Odessa

As a street child in postwar Odessa, Alexey pretended to be mute as part of a survival strategy. He joined Natasha and other children in a scheme to swap a stolen gramophone for a piece of bread. Pretending to be mute allowed him to avoid speaking to authorities and reduced the risk of being identified as an orphan without family, which could have led to being sent to a state institution.

• Alexey
• mute
• street children
• gramophone
• bread
• survival
• Odessa

Alexey's search was triggered by his desire to piece together a family that World War II scattered to the edges of history. As a writer who grew up in an orphanage after losing both parents, his father on the front and his mother to suicide, he felt a need to reconnect with the past that memory itself seemed to have erased. The search was simple in scope but devastating in implication: finding his two brothers who were scattered by the war.

• Alexey
• brothers
• search
• war
• orphanage
• family
• memory

Denis Kuskov, the middle brother, was adopted by a high-ranking Party official and raised far from the hardships that scarred his siblings. This adoption represented how postwar systems could shelter some children while neglecting others. Being connected to a powerful party member provided Denis with a comparatively privileged childhood in contrast to Alexey's orphanage and Sergey s criminal path, though it also created distance from his biological family.

• Denis Kuskov
• adoption
• Party official
• privilege
• upbringing
• postwar

The film concludes with a voiceover reading excerpts from Gennady Shpalikov's poem "By Misfortune or by Happiness," which frames Alexey's story as a meditation on fate, memory, and the enduring ache of those left behind by war. The poem anchors the narrative in a somber reflection on loss and resilience, suggesting that the past does not end where memory fades, it lingers and insists on being acknowledged, reinterpreted, and finally found in the hearts of those who dare to search.

• closing poem
• Gennady Shpalikov
• fate
• memory
• ending
• reflection