Very good film, terrible to watch

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2010)

The interesting thing for me when I saw this film was that I could not decide whether I liked it or not. Of course I could see that it is a quality film with great actors, still, I felt so bad after watching it so I could not say that I enjoyed it. After thinking about it I realized that this is one of these films I liked but would never watch again. I think that he really made this film as a film about war should be. I have seen so many films about war where I enjoyed watching war happen in front of my eyes and if so, the film is probably not very realistic. In almost all film about historical wars, it seems like it was this fantastic great victory and everyone was happy. I think that Elem Klimov tries to show us that there are no such thing as a happy ending in wars. The people who experienced it will have scars for life. The reason why I felt so uncomfortable watching it was that he made it so real. I felt this panic all the time and as Florya tries to escape the Nazi's, I wanted to escape to. I think that this is what makes it so important, to tell us who never experienced war what it is really like. The film shows how war changes people, that it is not a game and that nothing good comes out of it.