Flawed but worthwhile

Rating: Null/10 (9 September 2003)

Some of my problems with this film may be the result of it being made in a just slightly thawing political and cultural climate. The backwards montage scene at the end - No! The inability of Glasha to hold the same facial expression for more than an eight of a second. Was she also hypnotised like Kravchenko? Fortunately she disappears in the second half of the film. As an expression of the psychological effects of war, it works for a while, but it becomes very grating. Others are to do with the DVD transfer in (I suspect pan and scan) full frame, it made it look like Klimov didn't know how to compose a shot at times. Maybe it really did look like this on release, I don't know. But, these gripes aside, the film does come together in the second half and the final scenes in the village are an outstanding indictment of war and a very unsentimental representation of the Byelorussian experience under German occupation.