The Ascent
Jun. 15th, 2019 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerAcclaimed Soviet film director Larisa Shepitko offers the rigorous and surprisingly spiritual story of two Russian World War II partisans isolated from their comrades deep in the woods, trying desperately to avoid capture by Nazi forces. The tense drama also explores the landscape of the human soul and its capacity for loyalty and betrayal, themes masterfully culminated in the film's final scenes.
Netflix often has misleading descriptions for foreign films. Their description of Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent strikes me as particularly unhelpful, because I definitely went into the movie expecting the partisans to spend a large proportion of the screen time, you know, trying to avoid capture by the Nazis. (I even thought they might escape capture entirely at the end, but this is probably a sign that I’ve seen too many American movies.)
In actual fact, they’re captured about halfway through the movie, and everything else that happens is the sort of thing that follows logically upon being captured by the Nazis. It’s really well done (I wished the interrogation scenes were longer, but this is because I always want longer interrogation scenes, not because these were in any way deficient) and it is exactly as soul-crushing as you would expect a critically acclaimed Soviet war movie to be.
The part I found most crushing was the story of Rybak, the partisan who turns Nazi collaborator at the end, which is all the worse because until then he’s by no means a bad guy: he goes to great lengths to save his injured comrade Sotnikov, even though this puts him in the danger that eventually ends in their arrest.
During his interrogation, he isn’t as stalwart as Sotnikov - but then Sotnikov’s stalwartness ends with the interrogator having him branded on the chest, so maybe it’s not the best strategy - and Rybak is nonetheless wary, measured, trying to figure out how things stand without giving too much away. The interrogator offers him the chance to become a collaborator and Rybak puts him off.
But once the death sentence is announced, he starts shouting “I agree! I agree!” over and over, at the top of his lungs, completely undone by terror. It’s all the more awful because he wasn’t a bad guy to start out with: he’s made a precipitous fall.
Netflix often has misleading descriptions for foreign films. Their description of Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent strikes me as particularly unhelpful, because I definitely went into the movie expecting the partisans to spend a large proportion of the screen time, you know, trying to avoid capture by the Nazis. (I even thought they might escape capture entirely at the end, but this is probably a sign that I’ve seen too many American movies.)
In actual fact, they’re captured about halfway through the movie, and everything else that happens is the sort of thing that follows logically upon being captured by the Nazis. It’s really well done (I wished the interrogation scenes were longer, but this is because I always want longer interrogation scenes, not because these were in any way deficient) and it is exactly as soul-crushing as you would expect a critically acclaimed Soviet war movie to be.
The part I found most crushing was the story of Rybak, the partisan who turns Nazi collaborator at the end, which is all the worse because until then he’s by no means a bad guy: he goes to great lengths to save his injured comrade Sotnikov, even though this puts him in the danger that eventually ends in their arrest.
During his interrogation, he isn’t as stalwart as Sotnikov - but then Sotnikov’s stalwartness ends with the interrogator having him branded on the chest, so maybe it’s not the best strategy - and Rybak is nonetheless wary, measured, trying to figure out how things stand without giving too much away. The interrogator offers him the chance to become a collaborator and Rybak puts him off.
But once the death sentence is announced, he starts shouting “I agree! I agree!” over and over, at the top of his lungs, completely undone by terror. It’s all the more awful because he wasn’t a bad guy to start out with: he’s made a precipitous fall.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-15 03:02 pm (UTC)What view does Shepitko seem to take of Rybak at the end? To your mind, how is the film expecting/encouraging the viewers to think of him?
no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 01:16 am (UTC)The thing is, what Rybak has just done is so terrible - not only agreeing to collaborate with the Nazis, but actually helping in the execution of his friend - that no editorial commentary is necessary, in fact might undercut the horror of it. The film isn't sympathetic, but maybe empathetic? It wants you to feel along with him so you feel how incredibly horrible it would feel to betray your country and your friends.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 01:28 am (UTC)For a brief moment I was afraid maybe the film wanted viewers to condemn him, and while yes, what he's done is horrible, I think many of us wonder if we'd survive interrogation or crack, and wonder how far we'd fall if we broke--so I'm relieved by what you say, because yeah: empathetic.
But man, that is not a thing I want to experience by film AT ALL. I have enough self doubt without having to live through something like that.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-16 01:47 am (UTC)