The invasion of a village in Belarus by German forces sends young Florya into the forest to join the weary Resistance fighters, against his family's wishes. There he meets a girl, Glasha, who accompanies him back to his village. On returning home, Florya finds his family and fellow peasants massacred. His continued survival amidst the brutal debris of war becomes increasingly nightmarish, a battle between despair and hope.
Direction
Klimov's camera never flinches from atrocity; it stalks it.
Sound
Mozart mixed with screaming, a sonic assault on your nervous system.
Acting
Kravchenko's thousand-yard stare wasn't acting—he needed hypnosis to recover.
Director
Elem Klimov
Aleksei Kravchenko
Flyora Gayshun
Olga Mironova
Glasha
Liubomiras Laucevičius
Kosach
Vladas Bagdonas
Rubezh
Jüri Lumiste
Obersturmführer
Viktors Lorencs
Sturmbannführer
Kazimir Rabetsky
Village Headman
Yevgeni Tilicheyev
Gezhel
Aleksandr Berda
Chief of Staff of the Partisan Detachment
Viktor Vasiliev
German
Igor Gnevashev
Jew
Vasiliy Domrachyov
Little Policeman
Evgeniy Kryzhanovskiy
Partisan with Glasses
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Aleksei Kravchenko was 14 and had never acted; Klimov used live ammunition near him to get authentic fear.
Banned in the USSR for eight years—apparently even Soviet censors found it 'too nihilistic,' which is saying something.
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