In the Dusk

Sharunas Bartas is one my favorite directors. In my humble opinion Eastern Drift (2010) is his best work, wich he directed, writen and stared himself. His movies been selected into Cannes festival for as long as I can remember.

At Dusk is a film about post WW2 era when Soviets were occupying Lithuania. (NKVD) were ragging through Lithunian country land. Trying to establish a new rule and dealing with some partisan movement in some areas.

Movie folows Jurgis Pliauga played by Arvydas Dapsys who has very dificult relationship with people arround him. A modest farmstead owner whom we get to know throughout the film & A group of partisans (Forest Brothers) who hides in the forest from NKVD.

Film establishes a very slow pace and some action at the end of the film. Wich a little reminded me of another Barta's movie Peace to Us in Our Dreams. Movie dont really show any heroic action from partisans or the cruelty of Soviet invaders. Instead focuses on Day to Day lives of ordinary people in these harsh times.

Read several reviews on how this film is Russian desinformation against Lithuanian partisans wich dont make any sense really. I dont understand where they get this idea from... Movie dont paint soviets as liberators. Yes movie shows partisans do some killings themselfs against their countrymen who tend to work with the other side (NKVD) I guess that is what gave them this idea of propoganda. Other reviewer called that Lithaunian films have some Lithuanian-ish dramatism in them. Wich is soo true. And theres a lot of that in this film.

It seems a lot of the reviews on here are politically motivated, which is an abuse of the review and rating system and shouldn't be allowed. I know nothing about lithuanian history and partisans so my opinion is strictly about this film as a film.

It's a pretty good movie, even it it's a bit long and has a lot of what could be consider filler. For example, I don't think the story of the son's real parents matters to the story at all but it did add depth to the characters. Could've spent that time on the partisans instead. The acting is fantastic and made me feel sad for the characters getting killed. It's a depressing story about the changes that come after war.

It looks pretty good too. Nice colors and locations. If this was an american film it would get some award show hype I think.

This is a sad and pointless story. It's hard to say whether this is true or refracted through the minds of the filmmakers. One can learn interesting details of the life of the guerrillas, such as the fact that they did nothing but steal, lie down, eat and smoke. I'm inclined to believe that, especially since those 2:08 hours had to be stretched into something. The characters are very straight forward and unconvincing, with few exceptions and cutscenes. In fact, the only positive characters are the two women, and the most beautiful are the great minor autumn landscapes. The film is excellently shot, but nevertheless it is a total waste of time, which I did not expect.

It's disappointing how a great story is told in such an unfocused and weak way. There's no clear point of view, no character drives the story and the boy who seems to be the protagonist has no objective. I think the weakest part of the film is the poor casting of the protagonist since he never shows any emotion at all, not even when he asks about things he's supposed to care about and he just wanders around observing everything for no reason, doing absolutely nothing. The dialogues are also very bad, like when the boy and Ignas talk about getting land for free and out of nowhere bring out believing in God. The most emotional scenes which are between father and son, suffer from over exposition, old secret stories that are triggered out of nothing and what's worse, don't change anything in the boy. This is a shame because the father (Arvydas Dapsys) delivers a great performance. The only aspects of the film that made me watch it through were the cinematography, the locations and the rest of the characters which are really superb.

The film is not as trashy as other Lithuanian sovietic depression aka partizan films. This one was pretty decent, I really liked the calm pace and slow burning tension which were the defining characteristics of this film. Performances were great, Alvydas Anusauskas shined through everything, and, in contrast to what other cinefiles has said, I loved the performance of Marius Elijas Povilas Martynenko, his microexpressions were delivered wonderfully, in my humble opinion, his unexpressive possition fits the role perfectly and made the whole film feel like a great spectacle - yes, we are so used to Lithuanian actors bombarding us with feelings, emotions and expression in their faces, but I just felt relieved that finally we have a real human being in that sovietic world. Finally someone who I can relate to.

Now, let's talk about the things which made me cringe and feel unamused. First of all, the film essentialy was plotless, seriuously, there is no plot, just faces, dialogues, (which weren't perfect either and at times seemed to drawn out and way too silly) some wandering around, some shooting, hiding, some crying and deaths. That's it. There's nothing else you can hook on to and you just wait those two hours for something to happen. I waited waited and waited and nothing real happened.

Lithuanians like to say how Hollywood films have this hollywoodish dramatism in them. Well, I have to say that Lithaunian films have some Lithuanian-ish dramatism in them. Before I die, Imma just sing a few lines of that sad melancholic song I once heard; yeah, why not. So, a partizan sings a song and then shoots himself, whilst all of his friends are already dead. How clever. How realistic. You know what, why don't we also put some sad violin music in the background while partizans are being shot down one by one. Yeah, cool, let's do that, let's just ruin the moment. And lastly why don't we just make every person's relation to others extremely difficult so that our audience would not manage to fully understand it. A man is murdered by the soviet dogs whilst trying to escape, his wife is raped. But did soviets really do that? Well, I don't know, because I couldn't actually realise what was happening. And how, why did Unte get here? Where's the logic? Well, I don't know and I should't care about that, I should just enjoy the film, right? Wrong.

By the way, I couldn't help but notice every single time there were dirty hands or dirty fingernails or both shown on the screen. There were just too many scenes like that for me not to start thinking that maybe Sharunas Bartas has a dirty fingernail fetish.