Great film, hard to enjoy for all the right reasons

Rating: 9/10 (24 May 2014)

Reviewed after a single viewing

As everyone else has already mentioned, this is an extremely disturbing, gritty, realistic, and impressive Russian war movie. Having a young adult (although by the end of the movie he is mentally transformed far beyond his age) as the main character was a unique choice for a war film and is just another way to make everything in this film seem even more shocking. And this young actor, Aleksei Kravchenko, is a perfect fit. His faces and movements perfectly display the extreme emotional turmoil that any of these situations would create. The writing and dialogue was a minimal part of this movie for me (although that could have been because I don't speak the language and had to focus on subtitles) but the message is easily communicated across any language barriers simply because of the bleak imagery and this feeling of dread and horror that I rarely come across even in legitimate horror movies. War is hell. I think that's the point of the movie and it definitely succeeds in showing that. There are way too many brilliant, memorable, but disgusting scenes of wartime atrocities, some of them bordering on surrealistic hallucinations (similar to some parts of Apocalypse Now), especially with the help of a very strange and unsettling drone/ambient soundtrack meant to simulate the confusion of bombings and shellshock. There are parts that drag a little bit, but not for long. Powerful scenes are spread evenly throughout the film and at the end the viewer should be left ragged. I certainly was. Some of the worst moments are stuck in my head whenever this movie comes to mind. Although this is a brilliant movie, it's hard for me to say I really enjoyed it, seeing as I usually enjoy lighthearted and beautiful movies. It was hard to watch but for all the right reasons. So on two different scales:
Enjoyment: 6/10 Quality: 8/10 Would I watch again?: Of course, with the proper mental preparation haha