A Transcendent Vision of Suffering

One of the projects I have during these coronavirus times is an attempt to see a list of films that I should have seen but never did. It is a list I’ve made myself with films that have a recognized place in the history of cinema, but for some reason I’ve never come across them. I hope to share with you a couple of those films – the ones I experience as most remarkable and outstanding.

The first one I want to draw attention to is the Russian war film The Ascent of Larisa Shepitko from 1977. This film was internationally a sensation when it was released, winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival 1977. Shepitko belonged to a gifted generation of Russian filmmakers like Andrej Tarkovsky, Elem Klimov and Kira Muratova. She died in 1979 in a car crash at the age of 41. The Ascent was her fourth and last film. It was not appreciated by the Soviet censorship, so it soon went into oblivion. Now it is considered by many critics as the best Russian film of the decade, although Shepitko still is very much under-the-radar for lovers of film. 

The Ascent is a black-and white, emotionally gripping, psychological drama playing in the snowcovered countryside of Belorussia during the Nazi occupation in 1942. Two partisan soldiers are sent to a nearby village to look for food. Rybak is the experienced, rough soldier while his companion Sotnikov is the softer, out-of-place one. They are spotted by a Nazi patrol and Sotnikov is wounded in the leg in the shooting. They hide in a farmhouse of a woman and her three children, where they are captured. They are put in a prison together with a few others. There they are questioned and Sotnikov is tortured.

Each one of the prisoners kept in the dungeon needs to make choices, wondering what it will take them to survive. The roles get reversed. Rybak, the seasoned soldier, becomes the one who is willing to let go of his integrity and change sides if he can save himself. Sotnikov, the inexperienced one, stands firm and sticks to his principles. Rybak becomes a Judas figure, trying to save his skin but also needing to face the question if it was worth the price. Sotnikov is a Christ-like figure, uncompromising regarding righteousness and convictions, sacrificing his life if so needed. The final picture of the boy watching the hanging of Sotnikov suggests a deeper meaning of his death for the next generation.

This relentless confrontation of human nature in the face of suffering and death is enormously engaging. Filmed in an incredibly hostile natural setting with an eye for intimate details that draws you into the suffering, human figures look so frail and vulnerable! It makes us ask the deeper questions of life, about moral integrity in the face of evil, about what is worth to stand for and what is worth to die for. This is not just a film about the horrors of war, but it offers a transcendent vision of suffering and death. Powerful and captivating from the beginning to the end!

Rinus, May 2020

*image posted for non commercial purposes under fair use 
of copyright material in recommendation of the film

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