This is the first film I've seen by director Larisa Shepitko
Voskhozhdeniye (The Ascent)
Discovering films like this is one of the greatest joys in life. Films that are so transcendent that they are able to fully reflect the completeness of the human condition in whatever aspect of life they are depicting.
I'm also a sucker for stark winter landscapes. There's something about the starkness, bleakness, and danger of it all that seems to open everything up, take it to the edge, and lay it bare. Like Fargo, or Winter Light, or the final installment of the Human Condition (good name) series. Just having that landscape is by no means a given for a great movie though (was just recently disappointed by Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), if anything it gets me in a certain mood that now must be fulfilled.
The main themes have to do with how important are certain causes. What causes are worth dying for. When is a cause more important than the self or other people. When is it the other way around. Emotional and sometimes impossible decisions to make. The emotions here are so powerful. The acting fantastic. The faces so real.
What a disappointment to learn after watching this movie that the director was killed in a car crash just shortly before beginning her next work after this. Thank goodness she made a few others before this that I will surely be checking out.
Rating: 10/10