devastating depiction of wartime atrocities

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2010)

The title of this extraordinary film is borrowed, appropriately, from the biblical Book of Revelations, and the apocalyptic vision it presents of a Russian village destroyed under the advancing juggernaut of Hitler's 1941 blitzkrieg certainly ranks among the most horrific depictions of wartime madness ever recreated on celluloid. The story follows a young Russian boy separated from his partisan brigade, and tracks his slow descent into insanity as he witnesses one atrocity after another, until Nazi soldiers finally herd him (and, by extension, us) into a crowded peasant church and set it ablaze with flamethrowers. After several long, ominous establishing scenes the pace builds with feverish intensity to the climactic moments of annihilation, a tour de force of camera-work and editing apt to leave a permanent scar on the viewer's nerves. Faint-hearted patrons are advised to stay away: this face-to-face confrontation with the stark brutality of modern warfare is gut-wrenching stuff indeed.