The 2hr22m runtime feels like 6hours

Rating: 4/10 (28 January 2020)

This movie is basically a documentary which more-or-less shows what it was like back in WW2 from the perspective of Russians. Now I can appreciate that the movie is shot in 1985 and that the director went for a very 'artistic' feel by having the camera on actors' faces for often up to 1minute at a time, but honestly the way that this film was filmed just makes it boring, not 'artistic' at all.
They also killed a couple of animals in the movie, including shooting a cow and having it suffer for a while, which is something I HAVE to deduct a few rating points for... I mean, shooting an animal is absolutely fine if it was meant for slaughter in anyway, but shooting it and making it suffer is inexcusable, even if this was 1985 back when things were different, it's still not right.
There's also several things in the movie that don't make sense, like at certain scenes in the movie, some actors spoke in a very very deep and rough voice, like they were told by the director "speak like a demon would". It makes very little sense and just confuses the hell out of the viewer.
The acting is also pretty bad in a couple of scenes, particularly from the 2 main actors (the girl and the boy). I understand that it was both of their first times acting in a movie, but that doesn't excuse the bad casting choice. I mean, sure the girl is distractingly pretty, but she's a poor actor and she has no place in a movie... with her looks maybe in a magazine or pin-up poster, but not in a movie.
I'd give the first half of the movie a 2/10 and the second half of the movie a 8/10. So basically, if you want to watch the movie, do yourself a favor and skip to half-way.