Beautiful, Gruesome, and Tragic

Rating: 8/10 (7 June 2010)

I do not like war movies. In fact, I believe that all movies should have a happy ending. I suppose the fact that Florya survives is this film's version of a so-called happy ending, however, as this is based on WWII, a happy ending does not make sense.
The scenes that resonate with me are the most humanistic. In the beginning of the film Florya attempts to make his two twin sisters laugh prior to him joining the Soviet Partisan forces as his mother attempts to convince him to stay. This causes me to believe that not only did he not comprehend the severity of the situation, but he also wanted his little sisters to remain calm. Before leaving, one of the officers pointed out that the girls were identical, this foreshadows the difficult times and ultimate death of the family, as the Nazi party did testing on twins during the Holocaust.
The most beautiful scene in the film was after Florya and Glasha realized they were abandoned and they came across each other, both in tears. The wonderful part of this film was how evident human emotion was depicted. However, Glasha's expressions elicited confusion on my behalf, as at times I thought she went mad. Unfortunately the beautiful scene of them in the forest was ruined by bombs being dropped. This caused me to question how they filmed the scene. The saddest scene to me was Florya's desperate attempt to find his family by working his way through a bog, and the moment when Glasha concluded he was mad as she saw the stacks of murdered bodies.
As the film comes to a close, Klimov creates a montage of photographs and scenes of Hitler and the Nazi party. The last photograph is Hitler as an infant, which may depict that evil is a trait taught by society and that people are inherently good, or quite possibly the opposite. The fact that in the last scene Florya sees snow parallels how the Nazi's were extracted from the Soviet Union, not by human strength, but by the brutal winter.
Overall, this is not a film I will see again, however it is a good depiction of the Nazi's attempt to conquer the Soviet Union during WWII, especially with a personal perspective.