Rating: 4/5
Criterion Challenge 2023 | 46/52 | 1970s
The sharp wind cuts over snow-painted land. Gunshot sounds ricochet. A single figure emerges. Then dozens. Russian partisans traverse the tundra.
A German truck erupts over the horizon. Machine gun fire paints the trees.
The Russians retreat into the woods. A man shares seeds with everyone.
Women’s and children’s eyes meet the cameras. Their brows are stiff with ice, their face speckled with dirt and tears.
They must deliver everyone to safety. They must get rations.
The camera pans across the tree line — a mesmerizing pattern of bark and snow that obscures the group.
Two partisans — Sotnikov and Rybak — leave the group to seek supplies. We follow these men as they trek to a Belarusian village. When they arrive, they find themselves in German-occupied territory.
The film swings from kinetic and relentless to dense and reflective.
The black and white film is an aesthetic abstraction and a visual sharpening of the characters.
Handheld camera shots shiver alongside the partisans.
Distant cameras draw them as splotches marching along voids. Face close-ups detail inner turmoils.
The script is meticulous, with no variables except for the environment. Director Larisa Shepitko wanted to avoid any ambiguity to come through.
The score has incredible dissonance stings.
The result is bleak and human.
The actors look genuinely miserable in temperatures averaging 40 below.
The story asks a common wartime question — where is goodness? Does a martyr feed the soul or the worms? Does the conscience survive in the traitor’s heart?
Sotnikov gazes at the sky, his head fading in and out of focus.
Rybak imagines running away and the Germans immediately gunning him down.
I expect the movie to have philosophical digressions when Anatoly Solonitsyn shows up. Or maybe I’ve only seen him in Tarkovsky movies. This movie doesn’t disappoint there.
Vladimir Gostyukhon is an insomniac blend of Christian Slater and Harrison Ford.
Boris Plotnikov resembles every classical Russian painting of Jesus.
I appreciate what most of the film does, but the last twenty minutes bring everything into focus, perhaps to a fault.
I find it challenging to reconcile patriotism and morality, even in more nuanced cases.