A classic

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it seemed to have a strong reputation and since it was available on YouTube, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I was certainly not disappointed. Even though I’m still not an expert, I have seen my share of vintage Soviet movies (around 15) but, even though it is an interesting genre as these movies are so different than your usual full-length feature, to be honest, most of them tends to be rather tedious. This one was definitely an exception though. Above all, I was really impressed by how visually amazing it was. Indeed, this movie featured some hand-held camera scenes which were groundbreaking for the time period and, even 70 years later, these scenes are still so thrilling to behold. Concerning the cast, Tatyana Samoylova was just so charismatic, she was quite spellbinding and I’m not surprised that she was praised for her performance when this movie was released. To be honest, I didn’t care much for either Boris or Mark but I think the main focus was Veronica played beautifully by Samoylova. Concerning the story itself, it was not bad at all but I think it was probably the least interesting aspect of this otherwise fascinating movie. Sure, on one hand, it was interesting to see for the first time the impact of WWII on the Soviet population. However, on the other hand, this story of a young man super eager to join the army as a patriotic gesture and eventually ending up being butchered was hardly original though. Another thing that did bother me was the fact that it was never properly explained why Veronica suddenly got married with Mark when she was still clearly in love with Boris, especially since, at the time, there was no indication that Boris was dead. Anyway, to conclude, I really enjoyed the damned thing and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

8/10