Mix of realism and surrealism

Rating: 7/10 (13 March 2014)

Young Byelorussian youth Florya finds a rifle buried in the sand. He joins the resistance against the Nazis. He falls for beautiful peasant girl Glascha. A bombardment deafens him. He struggles around the war torn world. After getting separated once again, he pretends to be a simple farm boy. He is rounded up by the invading German force with the other town folks. He barely escapes a massacre of innocent villagers.
The first half has a lot of surrealism. Some of it is quite disturbing, and not necessarily the big obvious things like the dead bodies. The encounter with Glascha is the woods is completely wacko. I still don't understand what's going on between the two kids. Talking directly into the screen and extreme closeups are very disturbing. The dead body Hitler scarecrow is probably the most normal thing in that section. It keeps the movie from finding its feet. It unbalances what should be a compelling introduction.
The technicals of the movie is fair. I do wonder if they used real ammunitions. The big explosions are shocking. The tracer rounds look very real. I'm pretty sure they killed that cow. I doubt they used any animatronics to do the rolling of the cow's eye. When they use real flamethrowers and real ammunition, it leaves all the fake Hollywood effects behind.
And then when they burn down the church, I wanted it to be more realistic. I guess the Russians don't have the Hollywood expertise on stunts so a burn man is out of the question. The Russians put a lot of man and material into this. The wild orgy of violence is impressive. The second half of this movie is far more engaging. The movie is odd mix of realistic action and surreal emotionalism.