Klimov's visionary war movie about a young, journeying partisan who witnesses a Nazi massacre in a Belarussian village, is a bleak & horrific coming-of-age odyssey that rivals & ultimately tops Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood. Tracing the boy's picaresque passage from wide-eyed enthusiasm to weary detachment, this is one of the last classics of epic Soviet cinema, remaining amongst the best, most finely nuanced & haunted accounts of WWII's Eastern Front.
Krzysztof Kieslowski - Michael Mann - Jacques Rivette - Czech Cinema - Russian SciFi - Germany '45-60 - Lee Marvin