L'ascension

The Ascent (1977)

Larisa Shepitko is a name very few are familiar with. Her bright career as a director only lasted a single decade, ended abruptly by a tragic car accident. Despite her short career, she however managed to create some of the best Soviet films of her time. Her last film, The Ascent, is widely regarded as one of the finest Soviet films of the 1970s. Nevertheless, her work remained in obscurity throughout the years that followed, usually only available on rare and poor copies on video. That has now changed thanks to the folks at Criterion. They've released two of Shepitko's best works through their Eclipse department - Wings, and her penultimate masterpiece The Ascent.

Set during the darkest days of WWII in snowy rural Russia, two partisans trudge their way across the land in search of food after their party is attacked by Nazi patrols. They're originally only to go to a nearby farm, but when they arrive they find it razed by the Germans. Not wanting to return empty handed, they continue on deeper into enemy territory. Along the way they must confront not only enemy soldiers, but the harsh conditions of the Russian plains, potential betrayal and their own souls.

The movie does not fall into simplistic plot devices or destinations. It addresses difficult questions with painful rationality. It never takes the easy road or gives us comforting answers. The second half of the film is filled with moral dilemmas. Shepitko shows us the intimate horrors of war through the internal conflict between fellow Russians - those who collaborated and those who fought back. While she does show the collaborators as the clear heels, she nevertheless also shows why many turned to such tactics - survival.

The film contains a number of religious references, particularly to the lead up to the crucifixion. This is a spiritual journey, into the hearts, souls, and minds of the two partisans and those they encounter. Shepitko and her cinematographer capture the journey in beautiful black and white photography. The camera moves in long shots, similar to the camera-work of another of Russia's greatest filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky. Shepitko, like many others, was clearly influenced by Tarkovsky's style, and the Ascent takes some of its rhythmic notes from Ivan's Childhood. It is a stunning film to look at, and does a fantastic job of capturing the cold and terrifying atmosphere of occupied Russia.

Shepitko's husband would pay homage to her great film a decade later. Elem Klimov made his own war masterpiece with one of the greatest films I've ever seen - Come and See. The story and themes of that film were clearly influenced by The Ascent. Though that film is also a fairly obscure one, it received far more attention that any of Shepitko's films. That however acted as a bridge to Shepitko, and has been one of the best helps to keeping her work alive.

The Ascent is a truly magnificent film, and rightly should be considered one of the best films of the 70s. It's stunning cinematography is inspiring; its mood is frighteningly authentic; and its lessons are unforgettable. It is, in any definition of the word, nothing less than a masterpiece. How unfortunate that Shepitko's career was cut short just as it was hitting its peak.

Having just seen this, I find it hard to believe that it is not better known. This and the slightly-better-known, but almost-as-shamefully-neglected COME AND SEE (Klimov, 1986) must be two of the greatest war films. They are meaningful, powerful, incisive. THE ASCENT is also gifted with a sparingly-used, but brilliantly trenchant score by Schnittke.

In the Belarus of 1942, two Soviet soldiers are captured by Nazi-friendly Belarusians. In captivity, the attitude of the two men toward their fate differs greatly. One of the soldiers manages to find an inner strength and spirituality, incomprehensible to the other man. Larisa Shepitko's last film is one of the most beautiful war films in cinema history. The cinematography, by Vladimir Chuchnov, is incredible - particularly in the opening sequence, where long, slow, tracking shots depicting the solitude and almost desperate nature of winter landscape in rural Belarus set the mood perfectly. It is easy to draw comparison to Tarkovsky's films, even more so since Tarkovsky's alter ego Anatoli Solonitsyn has a small but important part in The Ascent. The acting is overall brilliant, especially by Boris Plotnikov, in the part of Sotnikov. The film reveals an old-fashioned belief in the strength of religious passion, which feels related to characters such as Dostoyevsky's Prince Myshkin, or Tarkovsky's Stalker. However, this is not a weakness of the film, but rather one of its greatest strengths. The religious content seems so honest, and human, that it is impossible not to be moved. The emotional richness of the film cannot be overstated; the answer is not as simplified as a short summary of the plot would make you think. The slow development of the characters, and the emphasis on their complicated relationships to each other, are somewhat reminiscent of The Commissar, another great Soviet film. The Ascent deserves a second watching, as well as a third, and a tenth. It continues to provide interesting ideas, beautiful images, and emotional complexity.

This is one of the very, very few films that are so overwhelming that you are very unlikely to watch it more than once or twice in your lifetime (other examples are Claude Lanzmann's documentary Shoah and Come and See by the director's husband Elem Klimov - which covers much the same unbearable territory but in a very different way).

I suppose this is just as well given the difficulty of ever seeing a print.

Apparently it's extraordinarily overt Christian symbolism and admission that there were active Russian collaborators, ensured that it was hardly ever seen in the USSR - and of course post-soviet Russia has very little interest in films of that era.

The one time I saw it in London was in a festival of Russian movies shown during the Glasnost era (i.e. probably c.1988) - however it apparently has been shown several times in the UK more recently so at least one subtitled print must exist here.

As far as I know it has never been released in the west on DVD or video so if you haven't seen it, your best chance is probably to join a film society and endlessly nag them to find a print and screen it.

This intense dramatic examination of the effect of battle on two soldiers thrown together by the circumstances of World War II is brutal and often difficult to watch; it is a black and white film, and since most of the action occurs in the snow, it sometimes approaches the look of an abstract painting.

In what is now Belarusa, the two men from different backgrounds are ordered to leave the camp to find food; on the way they encounter Nazi soldiers and are captured along with members of local peasantry; interrogation and torture follow. The film is less about action and more about the struggle to find meaning in battle, a struggle for the soul's integrity. This is a new release from the Criterion Eclipse series and is exquisitely remastered; be warned it is not an action film, and more a potent examination of human behavior under the worst sorts of stress; it can be a powerful viewing experience for some, and like Elem Klimov's Come And See, a revelation in many ways.