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A masterpiece of war: Larisa Spepitko's, "The Ascent, from 1976 and her

Posted by tinear on February 5, 2010 at 18:35:29:
last film before her tragic death in an automobile accident.
Two Russians set off from their company in a forest surrounded by German forces in WWII. Their mission to find and return with food from a farm one of the men remembers goes horribly awry and they find themselves facing a far worse fate than that of their left-behind freezing and starving comrades.
Never will you see a film which better depicts the depths to which some men can be driven by the prospects of a terrible death--- and how war in an area with a civilian population consumes the guilty as greedily as it harvests the innocent.
Most war films--- think of the apotheosis of "Private Ryan"--- show engagements and battles as lighting fast and deadly: Shepitko, however, makes the horror much more realistic, slowing the action down (without recourse to slow motion or any frame alteration) to more fully analyze the human suffering, indecision, vacillation.
This film confronts one's sense of courage, showing survival in war as somewhat a matter of luck, of temporary courage which may come and go like a volley of shots from an ambush.
Hours later, I am still disturbed by this film even though it has no real spilling of blood, no overt violence. The three principal actors, the two soldiers and the "traitor," are magnificent.