72 chasa

Shocked that after seven years, I'm the very first to write a review. It's a moving film and a WW2 story based on true event. The story revolves around a Russian, German collaborator who committed, horrendous atrocities against his own people. It's a film not only of murder and crime but of loyalty and human compassion. The usual Russian War picture, usually depicts any German as an almost cartoon baddie but here the enemy is used in a subtle way and the focus is (firmly on) one of their very own war criminals.

The amazing thing about this film is that it follows the career of an ordinary honest Russian who gradually takes sides with the Germans against his own people in minutest detail, creating a very comprehensive case history. An old Russian drunk recognizes him and reports him, and of course you must doubt the meaning of digging up old transgressions of 15 years back and insisting on putting to trial an apparently completely honest and ordinary man, but so also Eichmann appeared in Argentina after 15 years and many others like him, whose crimes apparently easily were forgotten by themselves but never by their victims. That's how it works, and the sum of the film is the irrevocable insistence on the necessity of never forgiving and never forgetting. The film is beautifully made, there is great Russian sensitivity and an eloquence of extremely tender and human scenes, where the director being a woman appears as a major advantage, many children are involved, and the sincerity, honesty and realism of the film is 100%. It's a shocking story the atrocities of which only add to the importance of its being told.