Anime nella Nebbia

In the Fog depicts the decisions that people are forced to make during times of conflict where they are no longer masters of their own fate, but victims of circumstances beyond their control.

Suchenya, the main protagonist, is confronted with choices that no one will ever want to make but, along with other characters in the film, is forced to make them. The story is not so much the consequences of those decisions that determine the characters' fate but the unexpected events that unfold as a result of those decisions.

This is an slow moving but thoughtful film about impossible choices some of us are forced to make that profoundly shape our futures.

The scene where Suchenya's interrogator waves to him would have to be one of the cruelest waves ever seen in a movie.

dark, slow, cold. slice from recent history. more than a movie, a reflection support. because it is not the story of a character but the story of a generation. it is not only a film who reminds Stalker by Tarkovsky but tool for discover a side of every day reality. a film about choices and profound cruelty. about the thin line between justice and errors. and about the real purpose of a life. a film who is not easy to see. because it seems be boring and cold and neutral and to simple or too confuse. in fact, it is a testimony. far by American blockbusters, using the old Russian cinema marks. a honest movie. that is all. simple, direct,cold, slow, dark, page from recent history.

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air," said the witches of MacBeth. Belarus, long occupied by the Germans during World War II, might well have been under the witches spell. Confusion is a fog that swallows soldiers, spies, special forces, partisans, police, rogue agents and civilians alike. They stab at each other in the dark, misjudging their prey and striking the heart of a friend.

Sushenya is caught by the Germans while sabotaging railroad tracks and instead of being put to death with his comrades, is inexplicably set free. Shooting him in the head would have done him a favor though, for Sushenya is now dead meat to his former pals. Minds are set in stone, traps are set, ambushes await, and Sushenya disappears into the forest and fog to meet his fate.

In the Fog is a thrilling combination of action and artistry, brain and brawn. One moment someone is discussing guilt and betrayal with their trusted comrade, and the next they get hit over the head with a brick by the same. There is light and sympathy too, but rare in such a place as Belarus under the German boot. Better to trust no one and wish for luck. A raw, deep and enthralling film. Seen at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

The film uses few really long takes and this works really well in some instances to create tension. Some scenes in In the Fog are really impressive and the first long tracking shot of the hanging of the three railroad workers really captures your attention. The Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days used long takes like this to great effect but this movie doesn't quite reach the effectiveness of that movie overall despite some striking scenes. It isn't surprising that these movies reminded me of each other because they both had the same cinematographer, Oleg Mutu. That movie did a better job in creating that crushing atmosphere and it had better and more expressive actors. 4 Months really glued me to the screen as every single scene provided more information or improved the atmosphere and so on. Here many scenes seem either completely pointless or they're simply too long. For example, at one point a man comes out of a forest and starts walking towards a house. Great, I got it. Instead the movie decides that this scene should go on for a complete minute with the camera staying put following the guy slowly walking across a field. What did those tens of extra seconds really provide? Nothing other than boredom.

I thought the acting was a bit too understated to really take full advantage of the long takes. You would think a bleak situation like this would bring out some passion or emotion from someone for a moment at least. It's hard to say if the actors delivered the lines really well or not because I don't speak Russian. I'm sure native speakers can really pick up on tones and other smaller things and get more out of the movie. It was also unclear at times who was speaking in some scenes because everyone was talking in that same monotone voice. I had a bit of a problem with the pacing because the movie jumps many months very suddenly from fall to winter with flashbacks and so on, it took a while for me to figure that out.

The movie did highlight many interesting things about the randomness of war and the moral complexities of occupation. There should've been more discussions in the film though, I'm sure it couldn't have been that hard to come up with some topics relating to the dire situations of the main characters for them to talk about. I also appreciated the efforts the movie made towards being authentic, I really believed it was the 1940s again. The actors wear cloth wraps instead of socks for example so there's really nothing anachronistic there to take you out of the movie. It's a decent movie all in all but not a masterpiece or anything.

"In the fog" is a movie with a complicated story about loyalty and betrayal in a Second World War resistance group.

"In the fog" loosely resembles "Rashomon" (1950, Akira Kurosawa), with the emphasis on loosely. In "Rashomon" there are various alternative versions of the truth. The conclusion is that perhaps such a thing as the single ultimate truth does not exist. In "In the fog" there is an ultimate truth, but in reality the way thinks look like is often far more important and influential than the way things really are.

Belarus is not a country with a real film tradition, and I am always interested in films from such "forgotten" (in the sense of film history) areas. Sometimes is is not a single director who attracts attention, but a whole new wave of promising directors. Take for example Romania where in a few years directors such as Cristi Puiu ("The death of Mr Lazarescu", 2005), Corneliu Porumboiu ("12:08 East of Buchares", 2006) and last but not least Cristian Mungiu ("Four month, three weeks and two days", 2007) scored a big hit in the Western art house cinema's. By the way Oleg Mutu, the cinematographer of Cristian Mungiu, also shot "In the fog".

However, director Sergey Loznitsa did not start a Belorussian new wave. He made documentaries before "In the fog", and he continued making documentaries after it. One exception is the movie "Donbass" from 2018. This film is situated in the east of the Ukraine and shows the influence of fake news on society in the post thruth era. In this respect "Donbass" further elaborates on the themes already visible in "In the fog".