Historical note:
"The film concerns the Nazi policy of "total annihilation" in the republic of Byelorussia (now known as Belarus or White Russia, adjacent to Poland) in 1943. The racial policy of the Nazis was to eliminate all "inferior races" such as Jews and Slavs from Eastern Europe and to make land available for German settlement in the east (Lebensraum). Because of the importance of Eastern Europe to Nazi policy the bulk of the German Army was sent to the eastern rather than the western front. Estimated that 20 million or more Russians (by Russians I mean the people of many nationalities that included Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Jews and many others who used to live on the Soviet territories occupied by Germans during 1941-1943) died fighting Hitler (recent estimates place figure 25-30 million). Units of the SS (Schutzstaffel) and SD (Sicherheitsdienst) were used to carry out the genocide. The SD was separated from the main body of the German Army (Wehrmacht) and made up of fanatical Nazis and fascist East European (often from the Baltic) collaborators."
Elem Klimov's and Ales Adamovich's Film is perhaps one of the most powerful and horrifying films about the war (I would add Tarkovsky's "The Childhood of Ivan" aka "Ivanovo Detstvo" and Mikhail Romm's documentary "Obyknovenny Fascism" aka "Ordinary Fascism" aka "Triumph Over Violence").
Not for a moment would the film let the viewer relax. With each scene, the feeling of horror increases. We are transformed into the main character, 16 year old boy Florya. We are forced to see with his eyes, to hear with his ears. In the beginning of the film, Florya is a child. At the end, after having witnessed the unspeakable terrors of the fascists, he becomes an adult, and not just an adult an old man. His face is the face of War and it is to us, the viewers, authors say come and look in this face if you dare.
War unmistakably selects as its victims the weakest, the youngest and the tenderest - the authors could not go against this truth. In the military camp, Florya meets the young girl, Glasha. Together, they try to make their way to the village where his family lived. But no one is there, it is empty - it is burnt out.
And again some force pushes Florya, Glasha and us to go further. But where? To the shed where the women and the children are burning alive? Into the hands of the rapists- fascists? Or to be photographed with the revolver put at your temple, surrounded by the laughing SS-men? Is there any way out of the Inferno of War?
The mystery of the final episode Florya can not force himself to shoot the child at the photograph sitting at his mother's lap. Even if the child's name is Adolph Hitler. Florya puts his rifle down. The clear blue sky is above him. Sounds Mozart's "Requiem". What is this? Victory? Or defeat? Did Florya survive or did he perish like millions and millions during the endless days, months, and years of the worst war the humankind had known? Even if survived physically, he is a changed forever man, the man who looked triumphant death and horror in the eye for too long to ever forget them.
"The film concerns the Nazi policy of "total annihilation" in the republic of Byelorussia (now known as Belarus or White Russia, adjacent to Poland) in 1943. The racial policy of the Nazis was to eliminate all "inferior races" such as Jews and Slavs from Eastern Europe and to make land available for German settlement in the east (Lebensraum). Because of the importance of Eastern Europe to Nazi policy the bulk of the German Army was sent to the eastern rather than the western front. Estimated that 20 million or more Russians (by Russians I mean the people of many nationalities that included Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Jews and many others who used to live on the Soviet territories occupied by Germans during 1941-1943) died fighting Hitler (recent estimates place figure 25-30 million). Units of the SS (Schutzstaffel) and SD (Sicherheitsdienst) were used to carry out the genocide. The SD was separated from the main body of the German Army (Wehrmacht) and made up of fanatical Nazis and fascist East European (often from the Baltic) collaborators."
Elem Klimov's and Ales Adamovich's Film is perhaps one of the most powerful and horrifying films about the war (I would add Tarkovsky's "The Childhood of Ivan" aka "Ivanovo Detstvo" and Mikhail Romm's documentary "Obyknovenny Fascism" aka "Ordinary Fascism" aka "Triumph Over Violence").
Not for a moment would the film let the viewer relax. With each scene, the feeling of horror increases. We are transformed into the main character, 16 year old boy Florya. We are forced to see with his eyes, to hear with his ears. In the beginning of the film, Florya is a child. At the end, after having witnessed the unspeakable terrors of the fascists, he becomes an adult, and not just an adult an old man. His face is the face of War and it is to us, the viewers, authors say come and look in this face if you dare.
War unmistakably selects as its victims the weakest, the youngest and the tenderest - the authors could not go against this truth. In the military camp, Florya meets the young girl, Glasha. Together, they try to make their way to the village where his family lived. But no one is there, it is empty - it is burnt out.
And again some force pushes Florya, Glasha and us to go further. But where? To the shed where the women and the children are burning alive? Into the hands of the rapists- fascists? Or to be photographed with the revolver put at your temple, surrounded by the laughing SS-men? Is there any way out of the Inferno of War?
The mystery of the final episode Florya can not force himself to shoot the child at the photograph sitting at his mother's lap. Even if the child's name is Adolph Hitler. Florya puts his rifle down. The clear blue sky is above him. Sounds Mozart's "Requiem". What is this? Victory? Or defeat? Did Florya survive or did he perish like millions and millions during the endless days, months, and years of the worst war the humankind had known? Even if survived physically, he is a changed forever man, the man who looked triumphant death and horror in the eye for too long to ever forget them.