Steineded How sad is this?

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Jackson Booth-Millard I found this Soviet (Russian) film in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, when I read more into, I found it was selected as the Soviet entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, but was not accepted as a nominee, but it was also rated well by critics, so I hoped for something worthwhile. Basically set during World War II, two Soviet partisans, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin), go to a Belarusian village in search of food. But they are spotted by a German patrol trying to take an animal from the farm of collaborationist headman (Sergei Yakovlev). A large gunfight takes place in the snow, one German is killed, and the two men get away, but Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) is shot in the leg, Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) must take him to the nearest shelter. They find the home of Demchikha (Lyudmila Polyakova), mother of three children, however the Germans discover them, and they are captured. The two men and a sobbing Demchikha are taken to the German headquarters. Sotnikov is interrogated by local collaborator Portnov (Anatoli Solonitsyn), a former Soviet club-house director and children's choirmaster, now head of the Belarusian Auxiliary Police and loyal to the Germans. Sotnikov refuses to answer Portnov's questions, despite being brutally tortured by members of the collaborationist police, he gives them no information. But Rybak tells as much as he thinks the police already know, hoping to live and attempt to escape later. The headman is then suspected of supporting the partisans, and teenager Basya Meyer (Viktoriya Goldentul), daughter of a Jewish shoemaker, are imprisoned in a cell together for the night. The next morning, all prisoners are lead out to be hanged, Rybak persuades Portnov and the Germans to let him join the police, while Sotnikov and the others are executed. The villagers vilify Rybak as he heads back to camp with his new comrades, he realises what he has done, he attempts to hang himself with his belt, but he fails. A policeman comes to see Rybak, telling him that their commander wants him, and leaves him alone in the courtyard, Rybak stares out of the door, he begins to laugh and weep. Also starring Lyudmila Polyakova as Demchikha. Filmed in monochrome black-and-white, this film was the fourth and last feature completed by director Larissa Shepitko, before her fatal car crash, it is an interesting story about desperation to survive, cowardice and collaboration, the scenes in the wintery conditions are most memorable, a worthwhile war drama. Good!

Turfseer The Ascent is the fourth and final feature of Soviet director Larisa Shepitko, who tragically died in a car accident at the age of 40, two years after the film's release in 1977. In many quarters, the film is hailed as a masterpiece. Given the simplicity of the story, I would be hesitant to place it in that category but it is nonetheless an impressive piece of filmmaking, with its austere black and white cinematography and great acting by all the principals concerned.The film is set during World War II in Belarus, one of the Soviet republics which was subject to the Nazi occupation. The protagonists are two partisans, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) who belong to a battalion consisting of both soldiers and civilians that come under fire by Germans and forced to flee into the forest in the dead of winter (the snow impacts the landscape throughout the entire narrative).Sotnikov and Rybak are ordered to find food as the battalion has run out of supplies and both troops and civilians are on the verge of starvation. The two soldiers first discover a farm they were looking for has been burnt down by the Germans and the inhabitants presumably killed. They find a house inhabited by a "headman" and his wife and conclude he's a German collaborator as he still has foodstuffs and a roof over his head. Sotnikov and Rybak take a farm animal for food but decide not to execute the headman.During an encounter with Germans, Sotnikov is shot in the leg and is severely injured. Sotnikov is on the verge of killing himself with his own shotgun but Rybak heroically drags him to another cottage, where they find a woman, Demchikha, and her three children.The action turns tragic when the Germans find the two partisans who are hiding in Demchikha's attic and arrest them along with the innocent woman and bring them in for questioning. The film ably highlights the Nazi's cruelty as they arrest Demchikha and ultimately find her guilty of being a partisan along with the two men (the children are cruelly left to fend for themselves in spite of the mother's heartrending pleas).Back at German Headquarters, Sotnikov and Rybak are interrogated by Portnov, a member of the Belarusian Auxiliary Police, another German collaborator. The film again ably notes that a good deal of the dirty work was done by locals allied with the Germans. Sotnikov ends up being tortured by Portnov and local collaborationist soldiers (a hot iron is applied to his chest) but he refuses to provide any information in regards to his batallion's position. Rybak, in contrast, tells Portnov everything he knows and is offered a chance to join the auxillary police.Meanwhile, the Headman has been accused by the Germans as being a partisan and he, along with Basya Meyer, the teen daughter of a Jewish shoemaker, end up imprisoned along with Sotnikov, Rybak and Demchikha.The film's denouement is clearly a mixed bag. Much is made of the contrast between Sotnikov, a Christ-like figure and Rybak, who is called a "Judas" to his face by a townsperson after accepting Portnov's offer to collaborate and acquiescing--watching while his comrades are executed. The reactions of the two are drawn out for maximum melodramatic effect, with Sotnikov bathed in a saintly aura as he goes to the gallows and Rybak, practically tearing his hair out with guilt over his decision to collaborate.Despite all the histrionics, Portnov and the Germans are depicted quite realistically, reacting to the entire scene as "business as usual," and confirming the old dictum of the "banality of evil." Demchikha's cries for mercy, in particular, are quite upsetting as they fall on the deaf ears of the monsters who callously ignore her pleas (her appeal is based on the face that she is the mother of three small children).The Ascent feels more like a parable than a story based on a completely real incident. The characters aren't completely fleshed out as real people but the emotions here ring true. The religious symbolism may be a bit overwrought with the contrast between courage and betrayal but the story still provides an unflinching glimpse at the power of evil men and the inability of innocents to escape their deadly clutches.

tugceatay Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we listened to the second world war from the United States.But Soviet Union where lost millions of people is changed the fate of the war.This is a reminding. So if you bored this 'America, hero of the the world' , this production could be good beginning for you. Now if we turn our film, this is really explain conflict between devotion and betrayal.Besides miserable conditions of peasants who had to struggle with Nazis, cold and hunger... There isn't exaggeration, unnecessary extensions.Russian films which have simplicity and the fact, the film has it. Especially poignant end of the film, description of human dignity that we lost nowadays demonstratively are drawn.

jacabiya I do not believe this film is religious at all. The message is that Mother Russia, not God, is and should be the ultimate objective and reason in life for a Russian man. True to its Russian tradition and communist credo, man should devote life to the greater interest of Nation over self, family, friends or God. There is nothing outrageous to Russians about what the director is doing in this film, except to Christian Russians. She's actually replacing the passion of Christ with the passion of the Russians in WW2, actually debunking Christianity and substituting it with the philosophy of communism and the spiritualism of her master Dovzhenko and Tarkovzky, et al, which view the Soviet government did not particularly appreciate at the time. Romans are now Germans and Jews are Russians, including the traitors who joined the invading forces. Pontius Pilates is now a Russian traitor who decides to save himself and Judas and to allow Christ to be crucified. Christ is not Christ but a Good Partisan, physically weak and ill, who scorns and hits Judas, who doesn't mind and actually approves Judas killing the old Russian man for being a traitor, who thinks of killing himself instead of being captured, who hates Germans but hates Russian collaborators even more (just like the Judas of Christ), and who comes to the conclusion that it is best to die for your country than to survive under such dire human conditions, that it is better to ascend spiritually than to stay and survive as a rat. Just before his hanging, he looks at a Russian boy and the boy looks at him: at that moment Christ is not thinking about God nor the afterlife but of what the boy will learn from his death. And the final shot clearly shows Judas facing the reality that even if he escapes the invaders' camp, even if he escapes the Germans, he will never escape Mother Russia.