It is August 1941. With the battle line far away in the east, three soldiers who have managed to escape from captivity find it difficult to hide: the territory is occupied by the enemy. The local woods are not safe: you can easily get embogged. Are the villagers loyal? Nobody can say. There is an old man who offers to help them. Is he reliable enough? He may kill them or report them to the local German authorities. Anything may happen, but one of them, the sniper, is his son who is his youngest, his dearest.
Acting
Stupka's father—every smile hides a blade.
Cinematography
Bog and birch trees as characters, not backdrop.
Direction
Meskhiev lets silence scream louder than gunfire.
Director
Dmitry Meskhiev
Konstantin Khabenskiy
Political Instructor
Sergey Garmash
Security Officer
Bohdan Stupka
Old Man
Mikhail Evlanov
Sniper
Fyodor Bondarchuk
Polizmeister
Sergei Dyachkov
Clerk at the Headquarters
Aleksandr Polovtsev
Major at the Headquarters
Natalya Surkova
Anna
Sergey Kozik
Anna Mikhalkova
Katerina
Pavel Badyrov
Yuriy Oskin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during Putin's first term, the film's ambivalence toward Soviet heroism rattled official narratives—rare candor for Russian war cinema.
The bog scenes were filmed in real Lithuanian wetlands; Khabenskiy contracted hypothermia and refused a double. Method madness.
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