must watch

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2016)

In 1943, two Belorussian boys dig in a sand field looking for abandoned rifles in order to join the Soviet partisan forces. One of the boys, Flyora, finds an SVT-40 rifle. The next day, partisans arrive at Flyora's house and conscript him. Flyora becomes a low-rank militiaman and is ordered to perform menial tasks. When the partisans are ready to move on, their commander, Kosach, orders Flyora to remain behind at the camp. Bitterly disappointed, Flyora walks into the forest weeping and meets Glafira (or Glasha), a beautiful girl infatuated with Kosach. Glasha becomes delusional and, thinking he is Kosach, kisses Flyora. Suddenly, the camp is attacked by German parachutists, and Flyora goes deaf from the heavy artillery fire.
After hiding in the forest, Flyora and Glasha return to his house to find it deserted and covered in flies. Denying that his family is dead, Flyora believes that they are hiding on a nearby island across a bog. As they run from the village, Glasha sees a pile of bodies stacked behind the house, but doesn't tell him of it. Unable to accept the truth, Flyora becomes hysterical as he and Glasha wade through the bog. At the island, they meet a resistance fighter, Roubej, who takes the pair to a large group of villagers who have fled the Germans. Flyora sees Yustin, an elderly villager who had been doused in petrol and burnt by the Germans, and accepts that his family is dead and blames himself for the tragedy.