Ballad of a Soldier (1959)
(Ballada o soldate)
Country: USSR
Technical: bw 88m
Director: Grigori Chukhrai
Cast: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolai Kryuchkov
Synopsis:
An act of bravery provides a young signalman with an opportunity for furlough during the Nazi offensive of 1941. He determines to return home to his mother and repair her roof, but his engagement with the people he meets on his way so delays his arrival that he must no sooner get there than return to the front.
Review:
A classic war movie, one which contrives to have massive popular appeal as well as conform with Party propaganda, namely in the use of bookends extolling the sacrifices of the mother and son. The unspoken suggestion that they are but one of millions, in line with Communist dogma, is belied by the exceptional selflessness of the nineteen-year-old hero in the course of his journey and in its purpose. The tone of the film is mostly light and playful, dwelling on the joviality of the soldiers and the freshness of the boy and girl who meet by accident on a train; at the same time there is a pervasive humanity surrounding them - this is not a picaresque journey full of traps and deceptions - and even the venal train guard is disarmingly ineffectual. Our hero visits another soldier's wife on his behalf and discovers infidelity for which he does not forgive her, though we, interestingly, do. All this is in accord with the ethos of a united nation fighting a faceless enemy. Viewed now, though, the film has a reinforced sadness of lost potentiality in these wasted lives, and conveys the vastness of the territory to be crossed. It is also beautifully shot and acted.
(Ballada o soldate)
Country: USSR
Technical: bw 88m
Director: Grigori Chukhrai
Cast: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolai Kryuchkov
Synopsis:
An act of bravery provides a young signalman with an opportunity for furlough during the Nazi offensive of 1941. He determines to return home to his mother and repair her roof, but his engagement with the people he meets on his way so delays his arrival that he must no sooner get there than return to the front.
Review:
A classic war movie, one which contrives to have massive popular appeal as well as conform with Party propaganda, namely in the use of bookends extolling the sacrifices of the mother and son. The unspoken suggestion that they are but one of millions, in line with Communist dogma, is belied by the exceptional selflessness of the nineteen-year-old hero in the course of his journey and in its purpose. The tone of the film is mostly light and playful, dwelling on the joviality of the soldiers and the freshness of the boy and girl who meet by accident on a train; at the same time there is a pervasive humanity surrounding them - this is not a picaresque journey full of traps and deceptions - and even the venal train guard is disarmingly ineffectual. Our hero visits another soldier's wife on his behalf and discovers infidelity for which he does not forgive her, though we, interestingly, do. All this is in accord with the ethos of a united nation fighting a faceless enemy. Viewed now, though, the film has a reinforced sadness of lost potentiality in these wasted lives, and conveys the vastness of the territory to be crossed. It is also beautifully shot and acted.
(Ballada o soldate)
Country: USSR
Technical: bw 88m
Director: Grigori Chukhrai
Cast: Vladimir Ivashov, Zhanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maksimova, Nikolai Kryuchkov
Synopsis:
An act of bravery provides a young signalman with an opportunity for furlough during the Nazi offensive of 1941. He determines to return home to his mother and repair her roof, but his engagement with the people he meets on his way so delays his arrival that he must no sooner get there than return to the front.
Review:
A classic war movie, one which contrives to have massive popular appeal as well as conform with Party propaganda, namely in the use of bookends extolling the sacrifices of the mother and son. The unspoken suggestion that they are but one of millions, in line with Communist dogma, is belied by the exceptional selflessness of the nineteen-year-old hero in the course of his journey and in its purpose. The tone of the film is mostly light and playful, dwelling on the joviality of the soldiers and the freshness of the boy and girl who meet by accident on a train; at the same time there is a pervasive humanity surrounding them - this is not a picaresque journey full of traps and deceptions - and even the venal train guard is disarmingly ineffectual. Our hero visits another soldier's wife on his behalf and discovers infidelity for which he does not forgive her, though we, interestingly, do. All this is in accord with the ethos of a united nation fighting a faceless enemy. Viewed now, though, the film has a reinforced sadness of lost potentiality in these wasted lives, and conveys the vastness of the territory to be crossed. It is also beautifully shot and acted.