An impressive film about one of the most overwhelming military episodes of World War II. The movie, shrouded in a breathtakingly dystopian surrealism, takes us, without holding back, into a hellish reality, with a Dantean vision imbued with raw neorealism that leaves the viewer emotionally anesthetized, much like the characters in the film.
The brilliant "Mozartian" overture of the film, both in its cinematic technique and its deeper reading, is noteworthy. Mozart, along with other German composers, was rediscovered and promoted by the Nazi regime in support of their Aryan doctrine, artificially positioned as creators and pillars of classical music, neglecting the numerous composers from other nationalities (especially Italians) who were actually the true proponents of the birth of European classical music. The association of Mozart's music with the rhythm of the shelling of Leningrad, formerly St. Petersburg, where many composers of the Neapolitan school had settled in the court of Catherine the Great, is a powerful metaphor for the forced imposition of a nationalist ideology on others.
The only discordant note in this masterful production is the use of a male voice as the off-screen narrator when the protagonist is, in fact, a female. Surely, the director made this choice deliberately, perhaps to create a certain distancing from the protagonist, but the real motivation escapes me and leaves me somewhat puzzled.
Apart from that, everything is superbly crafted, the characters are very believable, and the narration, with its slow pace, is masterfully elaborated. Of course, this is not a film for every palate: its slow pace, visual monotony, and scarcity of dialogues are not very common in today's film productions.
One last aspect I want to highlight is the ever-present, sometimes subtle, sometimes exuberant poetry of the film: an ode to the small things, to the most human feelings, to the value of nature, which always lies beneath a thick layer of ice and suffering.
