Zavtra byla voyna

Zavtra Byla Voyna (Tomorrow was the War). Directed by Yuriy Kara. 1987 89 minutes. 10/10 Set in Stalinist Russia in 1940 and based on a novel by Brois Vailiev. The story centers around a grade 9 class of students, but these students are older than our year 9 students, they look like year 12 students. The three main characters are girls in the class, the flirtatious Zina (Natalya Negoda), the serious Iskra (Irina Cherichenko) and the tragic Vika (Yuliya Tarkhova).

The story delves into the struggles of Iskra and Vika to reconcile their personal quest for freedom of expression and truth against the harsh backdrop of conformity to Stalin and the state as best exemplified by their teacher and Iskra's mother. Vika invites friends to her house and reads a poem from a decadent poet. An ideological conflict arises when Vika's father (Lyuberetsky) extols the virtues of freedom of expression to the girls and a few other members of the class. News of this soon reaches their teacher and Iskra's mother and he is soon denounced as an enemy of the state. The secret police come calling at midnight and he is taken away. It is never revealed who it was that denounced the father, and it doesn't even matter, as there are weighty themes the movie explores.

Worse is to come. At school the teacher denounces Vika, and demands she be expelled. She also demands that Iskra show her loyalty to the motherland, by being the one to denounce her friend. This is something Iskra refuses to do, despite mounting pressure on her in school, and from her own mother. The film is to be commended for showing the nuances involved, and the performance of Cherichenko in the key role of Iskra is nothing short of riveting, as we are left wondering from moment to moment whether she follow the examples of her mother and teacher and denounce her friends, or stand for what she believes in and follow the example of her principal, who is dismissed from his post for not toeing the party line.

There are no heavy interrogation scenes with faceless people representing the state. Images of Stalin are fleeting, his presence is felt more through association via Iskra's totalitarian mother and the demagoguery represented by her teacher, but it is always there lurking in the background. The dilemma faced by Iskra and the other students is weighty, and developed subtly, as we witness the struggle involved in the emergence of character, but it is character that emerges at a great cost and not without considerable pain along the way. A thoughtful and evocative movie with assured direction throughout and a wonderful soundtrack, it is a movie that will continue to reward with multiple viewings.

I never expected to be so impressed by this picture after reading the description. I often avoid to read reviews before watching the film in order to have my own uninfluenced opinions. This movie is like a thorn which you just stepped in. It's about the freedom, of having questions, wanting to find the truth and the repercussions of these in a Stalinist regime. The alternation of black and whit with the colored picture show exactly what I was saying: the difference between liberty, happiness shreds and marginal thinking, but also the difference between a great intellect and a small-minded one. The music in the film is also great, achieving a perfect conjunction with the images and the surroundings, the society. It's also a perfect explanation of the presumption of innocence and how society arrives to judge in advance, disregarding the collateral damage.

The film is about the truth, but it is absolutely not about the truth of discovering the injustice of the system, since every system is unjust in one way or another and people know about it, as everybody does in this film. This film however is about the exploration of truth, the real truth, the truth of heart, the truth of being loyal to your friend and to your country no matter what, no matter how difficult the situation is, no matter how unjust is the system.

There are movies, which i don't have the wish to see second time, because the first impression was so deep and insightful, that the second time raise the fear that it could disturb what I gained from the first one. And this movie gives much, too much, question after question, where no answer is absolute. It is movie about The Life, about the wish to live and about the fear of it. It describes the life of some young Sowjets before the break of the Nazi invasion, where the Sowjet presence is depicted with the real touch of emotions. As a typical Sowjet (Russian) movie the feeling and the play of the actors dominates, but because of the confrontation between young and old, in between the young ones and the old ones, there is no single cadre, which gives me a second of time to relax and I jump form one personage into another. I think that it is amazing how this feeling drama, succeed to overcome the tragedy of the situation, of its fearful environment and to glorify the Human. Somehow there is no trail of judgment, but the actors' play resolve it in the endless search for happiness of their personages. There many strong movies showing what human do to other human, this movie shows us what one can do to it self. Just the end is a bit of pathetic, but it is the true end, unfortunately, where the unification is matter of the death.

...for a time, an age and a country. for Stalinism. precise, honest, simple. and, more important, useful. a film about young people. and the brutal discover of truth. about the nuances of an unique age. and the clash of freshness of youth against near reality. sepia sequences. definitions. traits of teens. love and happiness. and the message. sure, it is easy to analize the film from the perspective of Glasnost. but, in strange manner, that remains just a detail. it is a powerful film. for story, performances and cinematography. and that could be the lead motif for see it.