A Witness to Atrocity

Rating: 7/10 (2 May 2005)

This film follows the path of a young boy as he confronts the incredible brutality of the partisan war in the Soviet Union during WW II. The film starts with the boy joyfully going off to join the partisans while his mother shrieks with fear. However, when the partisan band heads off, he's left behind due to his youth and innocence. As a result, he becomes a witness to the atrocities visited upon his village and others nearby by a wandering einsatzgruppen unit that takes great pleasure in its grisly task of extermination. The film is episodic and takes some unusual turns (the effort to put up the dummy German is one). This is film about images, not words. There is remarkably little dialogue throughout much of the film. It's also brutal and graphic. A great deal of the horror of this films comes from the simple joy (and conviction) that the Germans bring to their goal of wiping out the population.