Hoje Não Haverá Saída Livre

I finally got a copy of There Will Be No Leave Today (It has German subtitles, which helped a little since I know some German, but the dialog does not matter that much).

The film is about solders who have to remove WWII bombs which where found under a public road and drive them outside the town where they will be blown up.

It surprised me how good it was. There is very little of the Tarkovsky touch here and the camera movements and the editing are quite traditional (but still very well done). It could almost have been made in Hollywood.

What surprised me the most though was how good Tarkovsky was in directing a thriller. I was biting my nails midway though the film. See it if you possibly can.

I never much liked the poor visual style of the most soviet films I've seen. But this one caught my attention, for that it's very stylishly done.

The short film tells a story of a little soviet town where during roadworks a stockpile of WWII bombshells was discovered buried under the ground. The town gets evacuated & the army men have to remove the discovery accurately so that it doesn't blow away the buildings nearby. Tarkovsky even threw in some subplots. One being a man who was in the army during WWII and offered his help. The other - a surgeon, operating a wounded person in the evacuated town's hospital.

The film is fast paced and very well done. It holds an atmosphere of tension, makes the viewer fear that the shells will explode any second. Scenes are cleverly composed and memorable with first time appearances by famous Russian actors Leonid Kuravlyov and Stas Liubshin. The film's title comes from Kuravlyov character's line: "Yes, bro, seems like there will be no leave today". Probably the best short I've ever seen.