...and keep on seeing after the film has ended

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2007)

A disorienting film about the disorienting nature of war. Symbolic psychotic images fuel the film; and on screen the damage to soul, and to soil, is quite vivid. I think different film-making standards and guidelines in Russia.
If I had a bit of a problem, it was that our channel for said soul damage was a teenage boy. While I can see that choice underscoring the innocence that war crushes...or the notion of serving one's motherland, at times my connection to Aleksei Kravchenko as Florya faltered. His trembling, frazzled face...and the camera lingering on it...odd moments of petulance...but then maybe I'm not *supposed* to relate to him, as who really can? Your town invaded, your family massacred...well sadly on earth there are still many who can, but not myself. At one point, there's a shot where he's scouring a large pot, and it's as if he is being cooked alive.
Still I felt an older actor might have delivered a more nuanced performance, hell Kravchenko was less than 16 years old when he made this. I see he is still making films to this day, so maybe I need to see his body of work. Indeed as the film went on, he seemed to deal with the shock a little more internally.
Sadly, as the film went on, Glasha disappears...there was a time where I felt she was an imagined character. I know of course she was meant to be real, but something about her felt like an externalized innocence that was trying to keep Florya afloat, and alive. A sweet self-defense mechanism?
The film though is filled with tragical magical realism. The Hitler hominid that the Russians hump about. Glasha's singing and dancing in the rain, the bog crawl.
Ultimately I walked away reminded that war, any war, is such a failure of us as humans. I think this film starts with the image of the kids playing in the wake of the war, infantilely infatuated with infantry...but the lesson comes harsh and fierce.
I saw the Kino edition (via Netflix), wish I had come across the version mentioned here with more bonus features. I noticed that this was Klimov's last film for what it's worth. A pretty powerful and savage swan song. I may try his take on Rasputin next...
7/10 Thurston Hunger