Number 203 on IMDb's Top 250
A boy is unwillingly thrust into the atrocities of war in WWII Belarus, fighting for a hopelessly unequipped resistance movement against the ruthless German forces. Witnessing scenes of abject terror and accidentally surviving horrifying situations he loses his innocence and then his mind. Hilarity ensues.
Trivia: Filmed in chronological sequence. Many of the uniforms seen throughout the film are originals. Live ammunition was used in the film - in interviews, actor Aleksei Kravchenko has described actual bullets passing some 10 centimeters above his head. The director planned to have Aleksei Kravchenko hypnotized by a psychotherapist during the most dreadful and violent scenes so that they wouldn't affect his young mind. However Kravchenko turned out not to be susceptible to hypnosis and had to pretend all the way.
Geez, what do I say about this film? Watching this young man go from idealistic wide-eyed youth to jaded, sullen, aged beyond reason young man was very hard at times. At least the was a hot belarussian girl in the first part of the movie (she looked like Kirsten Dunst). It was a little cool to see the war from a different perspective, the Belarusian peasant. One thing I have learned from all these war movies, to the victor goes the ability to vilify a whole nation. The Germans are always portrayed in a bad light, I know the Nazis were bad, but I refuse to think that every German soldier enjoyed going into a town and burning everything, including in this movie, rounding up all the inhabitants including children, (especially children in this case) and putting them in one big structure and setting the building on fire then celebrating like it was a great big barbecue, including at least one German woman. (by the way, the picture on the cover of the DVD shown above is when the German officer held a gun to the boy's head to have his picture taken, then he left the boy). The lone German aircraft that serves as a silent observer and flies over every once in a while is a strange eerie touch.
Up Next: Anatomy of a Murder, In a murder trial, the defendant says he suffered temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?
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