** WARNING - SPOILERS ***
This is one of the most beautifully shot films I've seen in a long time. You could almost take a snapshot of every scene, frame it and it would make a fine portrait.
Which is why the ending is all the more powerfull and a bleak message of what communism does to human beings.
I was hoping that Maria would not carry out her order regarding Lieutenant Vadim and that human love would prevail.
Very sad.
8/10
the cinematography was astonishing
so very beautifulWhen there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...
One great technique they used that you never see anymore was the way they reduced the field of view in so many of the shots, blocking out the edges.
"No man is just a number"
SPOILERS
Just because Maria carries out her order, it doesn't mean that this is a simple, black-and-white, The-good-comrade-carried-out-her-order-and-we're-all-satisfied film. On the contrary, this film is a product of the Thaw, and it is rather shocking in the way that it breaks from propaganda lines of the past. Yes, she shoots him in the end, but we are allowed to feel the tragedy of it all. The film rather boldly (for the Soviet Union) humanizes a White officer, and no viewer can help but feel that common humanity transcends everything else here. No, the film doesn't drop class consciousness and class struggle entirely, but it goes about as far as a Soviet film could in pushing the envelope of international, supra-political humanism.
"Which is why the ending is all the more powerfull and a bleak message of what communism does to human beings."
YOU DON'T SAY?????
As Local-Hero mentioned, this film was very bold in humanizing "the enemy" and pushing the envelope as much as a Soviet production could. So it WAS supposed to be a sad ending. By calling the movie "propaganda" while explaining the quite obvious humanistic message, you're basically denouncing the film whilst taking the credit for the film's message, as if you discovered it yourself. I can honestly say, all my life I've never seen anyone do what you did: 1. distort someone's meaning 2. take that person's original meaning as some deeply hidden problem or agenda that they *inadvertently* exposed and that which only you were perceptive enough to discover.
Just...wow.
Anyway the Lt. was not as innocent as you probably think. There might be love but it wasn't true love. He sealed his fate the moment he decided to excitedly run towards the White ship, because in that moment he forgot all about Maria. At that moment it simply didn't occur to him what his comrades would do to an uppity peasant-turned Red sniper who killed 40 of them. IRL either of 2 scenarios would take place: Maria shoots Blue Eyes dead, the white soldiers disembark, gang-rape her and then execute her on the beach; or Maria surrenders, they gang-rape and execute her on the ship and throw her overboard while blue eyes get reprimanded for fraternizing with the enemy.
It is a story about the Russian civil war, after all. White guards were known for the terror and gruesome atrocities – not love – committed against the people they captured. Threatened with capture the protagonist has limited options.
The film is a remake of the 1927 film, written by Boris Lavrenyov and directed by Boris Leonidov.
Sergey Urusevsky, who else? This man deserves a statue more than Jesus Christ.
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-You won't forget me now?share
-No. I've got nobody else to remember.