Shepitko is the wife of Russian filmmaker Elem Klimov, who directed the more commercially known 1984 film COME AND SEE, generally regarded as one of the most realistic war films ever, bar none, notable for its searing poetic intensity, but I believe it lacks the inner complexity of this even greater Russian film, which examines not just the graphic outer horrors, but she finds truly inspiring images focusing on individuals or small groups of characters that reflect the absolute insanity taking place inside these human beings, the ending of which is simply awe-inspiring. Bullets are flying and bodies are dying in a gun skirmish over the opening credits, where the intensity of the film never lets up throughout the duration, focusing on grim faces, worn out soldiers with next to nothing to eat, a terrified population under occupation, starving children with petrified mothers, all cast in an immense landscape of endless white snow. Like CRANES ARE FLYING (1957), this features a Russian army in retreat, a traumatizing shock early in the war when they were nearly wiped out. The Russian countryside has been overrun by German Nazi's who are terrorizing the citizens, stealing what food they have, forcing them under duress to become their informant eyes and ears. What Russian soldiers are left hide under cover of forests, but are forced to send food expeditions to neighboring farms. This film follows two soldiers that from the outset are on a near impossible mission, as there's little food left anywhere in the dead of winter. One is healthy and fit, Vladimir Gostyukhin as Rybak, while the other, Boris Plotnikov as Sotnikov, is slowed down by a tubercular sounding cough and eventually a bullet in his leg that nearly leaves him for dead, but his partner heroically rescues him. As they step through knee deep snow drifts, crawling at some points with insufficient protection against the harsh elements, like so many other Russian films, nature itself becomes their toughest foe.
Spoilers!! Everything is reduced to a matter of survival. When they reach their destination, the farm has been demolished and left in a state of rubble, pushing forward into German occupied territory where the next farm is manned by an elderly Soviet collaborator who fears Nazi retribution. The partisan soldiers think him a coward but move on, where they are eventually captured and brought to a Nazi camp in a nearby town and held as prisoners, along with a proud and protective mother (Lyudmila Polyakova) who helped hide them. Tarkovsky stalwart Anatoli Solonitsyn appears as Portnov the interrogator, a Russian teacher from a nearby academy turned Nazi sympathizer. Russians torturing and executing fellow Russians is the depth of war depravity and Solonitsyn is brilliant in the despicable role he's perfectly suited for. From what we can see, as Nazi officers chat jovially in close proximity to one another, he is an outsider even among this group, seen instead as a kind of gruesome black-cloaked undertaker who routinely sends men to their graves. The audience is not spared from witnessing acts of torture on Sotnikov, who offers nothing but contempt, while Rybak speaks freely, hoping to save his life, but both are condemned to die, though Rybak is offered a chance to serve the German Reich as a police agent. The mother, the elderly collaborator, and a child are added to this group, spending one last night together alive where together they discuss the merits of a soldier's mission, of being a patriot, a mother, a coward, or a collaborator. Each seems individually driven by a desperate need to survive, but Sotnikov offers himself as a selfless example, attempting to confess his guilt to spare the others, where the aptly chosen title reflects his spiritual redemption.
By the next morning, Portnov seems mildly amused, mocking them at their sudden willingness to talk, but spares no one except Rybak, who changes sides to keep his life, rationalizing in his thoughts that if he's alive, at least he has a chance to escape. But there is no escapenot from this torment. What happens is shown with exquisite delicacy and poetic grace, as we witness the treachery of war without a single shot being fired, as the execution by hanging is turned into a public spectacle, where the villagers at the point of a gun are forced to witness. The pace and harrowing intensity of this film is relentless, as there is never a moment without impending menace, gorgeously shot by Vladimir Chukhnov (who died in the same car accident as Shepitko), featuring perfectly composed landscapes and plenty of camera movement, much of it at close range using portraitures, especially that of a fierce young boy at the end who eyes the condemned men, who makes a surreal connection to the next generation without any words being spoken, accentuated by the psychologically horrific music of Alfred Shnittke which resembles the transcendent yet furiously disturbing monolith music from Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968). The sound design of this film is highly advanced and uniquely modern, where the use of off screen sound continually exposes the raw nerves of each moment, dogs barking, wind blowing, bullets firing, nearby Nazi's chattering in untranslated German or laughing sadistically at their helplessness, which only ratchets up the hideous tension to insane heights. In many ways resembling Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928), utter insanity is exposed here, the relentless realization that you have no choice, yet you are forced to make one anyway. The nightmarish inner thoughts at the end are expressed wordlessly, where the nobility of the dead speaks volumes, where voices continue to reverberate inside the heads of the living like an explosion of neverending echoes, yet only silence fills the crisp wintry air with a mournful reverence and a profound sense of loss.
