Once you see, it never goes away...

Rating: 10/10 (3 June 2012)

I am not only speaking for myself, I am speaking for many of you out there when I say that this movie makes such an impact on you and leaves a scar of an unforgettable story.
It is not an antiwar movie, it is just a genuine portray of what war is all about. Without any censoring you get to experience the young boy Florian's horrific journey in Belarus throughout World War 2 where 628 villages were brutally and inhumanly destroyed by the Nazis. The most powerful impact about this movie is how the young boy's appearance changes during the course of the movie, before your eyes he literally changes and looks like an old man in the end.
I was left speechless for a while, never before has a movie made me use all my five senses, made me feel, smell and hear every second of the film. Elem Klimov is brilliant in the way that when you are just telling yourself "it is just a film" he takes you right back to Florian's atrocious reality.