The Thief is a story of hero worship that recounts what happens when a young boy chooses the wrong role model. It's also an examination of the way a person's impressions of the world change from childhood to adulthood, and how the simple innocence of a 6 year-old's outlook is doomed to mutate in the face of life's harsh realities. The Thief relates the memories of Sanya, a forty-something Russian who looks back on his early years with an unbiased eye. His voiceover narration is sparse, giving us the bare details of time, place, and background, and reminding us of how uncertain our childhood recollections are. Director Pavel Chukhrai uses this perspective to present a child's point-of-view filtered through the v ision of an adult.

The Thief was the Russian nominee for 1998's Best Foreign Language Film, and is evidence of the progression of movie making in the post-Soviet era. There is more to this picture than just an affecting story; for those who care to look, there's plenty of symbolism.