Watch this movie and "The Ascent"

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2003)

This is probably the most harrowing war movie ever made...I can't think of any other war film that hits you over the head and stomps on your guts as much. It is a very Russian movie, I can't think of another part of the world where a movie like this would be made in that style.
For me, some scenes stand out because I have never seen anything like them. The boy in the woods concussed from the explosions as the German paratroopers arrive. The soundtrack goes to a high pitched ringing. The two children running through a deserted village, they stop at a house to eat a cake left in the kitchen. All around are flies, but where do they come from? They run out of the house and out of the village; in the background, you see why there are so many flies; the bodies of the villagers are just piled high against a building, but the children don't notice them. The Germans herding the villagers into a barn and burning it. Later, the Nazis are herded themselves by Russians and douse themselves with petrol as they go mad. The effigy of Hitler made out of mud and grass.

Apparently, this movie was originally planned to have been directed by Klimov's wife; the brilliant Larissa Shepitko (who directed "The Ascent") who died in a car crash before the project got going. "The Ascent" deals with a lot of similar themes and shares the same premise of partisans struggling to survive under Nazi invasion, but goes into the human side a lot more.