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New restoration opens February 21, 2020 at Film Forum: Director Elem Klimov Cast Aleksei Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevičius Screenplay Elem Klimov, Ales Adamovich Based on I Am from the Fiery Village by Ales Adamovich, Janka Bryl, and Vladimir Kolesnik Cinematography Aleksei Rodionov 1985 | USSR | DCP restoration | Approx. 142 min. In Belorussian, Russian, and German with English subtitles Belorussia, 1943, and 15-year-old Aleksei Kravchenko is so eager to join the partisans that he begins to dig up stashed rifles in an open field, even as a plane goes overhead. And then begins his nightmarish odyssey, done in vintage dream-like surrealist style: being accepted and rejected by the partisans; deafened by bombers, he and a young nurse wander through the forest as refuge, finding an empty village with food on the plates still warm; running through a minefield; stealing a cow only to have it shot in a crossfire. And then, with bells ringing and dogs barking, a hair-raisingly realistic final hecatomb, epilogued by an objective flashback unique in film history, unreeling backward overall and within shots. Non-pro Kravchenko ages before our eyes, through both his performance and stunning makeup. During the actual Battle of Stalingrad, director Klimov was evacuated with his mother and baby brother under fire on a makeshift raft across the Volga. Despite living another 18 years, this was Klimov’s final film. A Mosfilm restoration produced by Karen Shakhnazarov. A JANUS FILMS RELEASE.
