Come and see the war from the inside out.

Rating: 9/10 (13 June 2009)

This was probably one of the most touching movies I have ever watched. It is one of those that can change your point of view in a lot of aspects. Sad movies have this power a little more than the happy ending ones. It is a lot like life, which fits the real life scene that the movie depicts.
During the Second World War, Flor, a Byelorussian finds a buried gun from WWI around his village, which allows him to fight the war like his dad. This boy not older than 15 is doomed without even knowing. Leaving his mom and little sisters at home, Flor leaves to a psychological and physically violent experience, against the will of his mom and dad, who had told him to stay and take care of the family while he is fighting the war. The adventure starts with him already being beaten by the recruiters on the way out of the village. From there and on his life becomes gradually more carelessly empty. He meets Glasha, a girl that is at the same base he goes to. These two meet and they are director Klimov's entrance to the whole psychological aspect of the war on people.
The fine line between their innocence and the corruption of their surroundings is a constant contrast in the movie. When they first meet out in the fields, they go through a bombing attack by the enemy. That makes have to stay together and take care of each other. They stick to their innocence and make plans. The violence around them is clear and the image of the plane in the sky (in between scenes) always predict something bad that's about to happen. However, after the bombing the two are alone in the woods with a mysterious big white bird. The bird made me feel more comforted and hopeful that their lives would get better as the movie went along. Wrong. They try to be together and away from the war. Wrong again. They go back to a vandalized village where a 2 second scene of corpses piled up by Flor's old house say a lot and hit the viewer like a punch on the stomach. That combined to the subtle indicators of violence around the house such as the blood stains on a little kid's toy on the floor. At this point Flor, already deaf from the first bombing, goes mad.
The amount of hate this boy witnesses makes him slowly detached of any human/love values and he just wants to fight this thing that's caused him so much suffering. Another strong scene is when Flor is back in the Village and meets his dad, who is back from the war and together with the survivors of the killings on the area. I could better state it what was left of his dad, who had been burned alive by enemy soldiers and survived although having asked to be killed instead of being tortured like that. Major killing scenes are not the main focus of Klimov on the movie. The focus is to show one personal experience, Flor's, of what is like to fight the war and how it affected him. Even though the found gun was his passport to be able to fight the war, Flor does never use his gun except this one time, when he shoots a whole load on a Hitler portrait on the floor after having survived a major attack. The shield created by the amount of atrocities witnessed made our main character lose all of his beliefs and will to build a family with Glasha and be happy even though he left her to go back to war after having had a baby. He becomes this old looking young boy that had the pain and the evilness stamped on wrinkles and marks all over his face.
Klimov did a wonderful job with this movie and the fact that Flor did not die did not make my viewer heart feel better. It shows in detail how this little boy from this little Byelorussian village was affected by WWII and that is so touching, specially knowing that that was only one of the 628 villages that were burned to the ground during the war. No wonder this is considered one of the best anti-war movies out.