A Great War Film

Rating: 8/10 (8 February 2011)

This film is a gut wrenching experience that will test a viewer's limits. The realistic sense of this film does so much to heighten the brutality of what is being shown. The story is what I would assume war is like, as in not glorified, but shows unbelievable hardships of a young boy who has joined the partisans. The way Klimov shot the film, where scenes like the crossing of the bog were real and not staged also helped with the realistic sense, but also with the horrifying feeling this film gives off. This film also does a great job to make you feel the crazy that is happening in the movie. Scenes are not shown with a great amount of details of explanation, they are felt though, which is why it is such an intense movie. It literally feels like you are there with Florya. Just too quickly mention, some scenes seem to be amazingly realistic and that's because they probably are. The film really does show the unimaginable effects of war. You can see how everything is damaged, like how nature is destroyed with the dropping bombs, how innocent people are massacred. The psychological, emotional, mental and physical torment people must go through just to survive is depicted flawlessly in this film. I don't think I can stress it enough, but all these things rub off on viewers. Viewers watch as the Nazi enter a village and massacre an entire village as they celebrate and take pictures. Then it moves onto these same Germans and Russian collaborator begging for forgiveness and not be killed by the partisans. The question that should come up as this scene unravels is what should happen to these Germans. Is it okay to brutally kill these captured Germans? After all that is what war is is it not?