Five soldiers, one baby, no reinforcements. Yugoslav cinema's bleakest hour.
A group of partisans fight to the last man to cover a retreat, leaving only five, who take the newborn child of a dead woman with them. Based on the novel by Mihajlo Ranovcevic.
Acting
Pavle Vuisić's weary eyes carry entire monologues.
Cinematography
Smoke-choked forests that swallow hope whole.
Director
Vladimir Pogačić
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of Yugoslavia's 'Partisan film' wave—state-funded mythmaking that occasionally produced genuinely anti-war art like this.
Pogačić was blacklisted shortly after; this film's bleakness read as ideological insufficiently-optimistic to Party censors.
YU
