Voskhozhdeniye (The Ascent) (1978)

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  January 15, 2010

  gator681

  In "The Ascent," a group of partisans during the Great Patriotic War are being picked off one by one by the occupying and much better armed Nazi soldiers. To make matters worse, they are also quickly running out of food. Rybak(Vladimir Gostyukhin) knows the local area and volun... read moreteers to go to a local farmhouse, along with Sotnikov(Boris Plotnikov), a trained soldier, who has no experience with the extreme cold and quickly falls ill. They find the farmhouse burned to the ground and venture further to a village where they appropriate a sheep from the local headman(Serge Yakovlev). But before they can make it back to camp, they are ambushed.
  
  Directed by Larisa Shepitko, "The Ascent" is a harrowing war movie whose chain of events deliberately builds to a powerful finale. My only complaint is that the opening credits are displayed over the action. The movie is set in a frozen snow-covered landscape that almost appears to be a whiteout at times(at one point, the men stumble across a frozen lake) where survival can be difficult, even when it is not during a time of war. The movie does a very good job of using this setting to explore the high price of capitulation during war time. This is something Sotnikov would not even consider as he tries shooting himself rather than being taken prisoner before Rybak rescues him. In retrospect, we know how this war will end but all the characters see is a bleak future before them.

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  January 14, 2011

  hossein13

  Jan 2011 - This is nothing but propaganda but it is made so well that it is impossible to ignore it just as propaganda. The story unfolds with so much parallelism with the story of the crucification. In the last sequence this becomes excruciating where the christ is being hung (c... read morerucified), we have the Judas, christ's apostles and obviously Germans (romans). Interesting that near the end I remembered that I had seen this when I was around 10 years old and the pain and depression that I had gone through seeing all that has remained so much with me.

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  August 24, 2008

  thrusz

  God f*cking dammit! I just wrote a really long, insightful review about this movie and Flixster lost it...again!
  
  I'm sorry, Flixster. It has nothing to do with you. I just wish that there was a confirmation button that you uploaded the file rather than just show a stock ima... read morege, that's all.
  
  Anyway, onto reviewing this movie again! This movie is extremely different than the other Shepitko movie in the set except in the sense that they are both very depressing movies. Wings is this very personal drama about a woman longing to return to her youth that primarily focuses on her. The Ascene, on the other hand, starts off with a very grandiose scale of the war that eventually becomes a very claustrophobic movie.
  
  I say that it is claustrophobic because Shepitko has a talent of making her audience feel the same pressures that her characters are feeling. The feelings of being closed and pressed against a wall are stifling in this film and I was wildly impressed with how moved I was by a Russian war film. There is a strange playfulness to Sheptiko's filmmaking here. I can't say that this movie is at all playful because it is miserable and somber, but she really does craft her characters in a playful way. These are characters who show a very different face than that of their true nature. The man who is meant to be the brave hero is actually a traitorous coawrd and the man meant to be the fool is one of the bravest soldiers of all time. These people are more than just two-dimensional carvings. It brings up a lot of food for thought. Perhaps the "brave soldier" is only brave because he knows that he will do anything to avoid death. Thus, he has never faced death. Perhaps the man who is seen as a scared fool is rightly and justly scared because he knows what is truly at stake besides the simple concept of valor and fame. There's some really tough questions that go on here. The really impressive part that Shepitko doesn't go out and say these things plainly. These are all very well embedded concepts that the viewer must take away from the movie him or herself.
  
  There is also a very rich visual sense to this movie. While Shepitko may not be the first person to use snow as a visual choice, she is the first to really make it a character in the story. Snow is not all the way throughout the film, but there is a certain power to the snow. Most movies featuring snow simply have the snow because it is pretty or it plays directly into the plot somehow. This snow is rarely interactive. However, the snow in The Ascent attaches itself to the characters and engulfs them. The only time you see snow stick to people in movies is if they are freezing to death or have already frozen to death. The foley guy must have had a blast with this movie when it came to the snow because there is an otherworldly quality to the music it makes. It is almost like it is breathing glass when it is touched or crunched and that is a very cool concept. (Literally! Ha! I kill me!) Snow is just one aspect of the environment coming to life, but I think it perhaps is the most noticable choice that Sheptiko puts in her environment.
  
  This is a sad bastard of a film. The really sad thing is that I have never heard about this movie before Eclipse decided to release this set. Larisa Shepitko was an extremely talented filmmaker and all I can do is beg Criterion to release more of her films. Honestly, this movie is one of the greatest war movies I've seen in a long, long time and I am thrilled that I had the chance to see it. I don't know what it is about Russian filmmaking, but there is something very personal and very honest to their style. These are real films that pull and tug at the audience. There is no distance between the screen and the viewer and I thank them for adding a richness to cinema that you can see in few other places.

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• Boris Plotnikov
• Vladimir Gostyukhin
• Sergei Yakovlev
• Lyudmila Polyakova
• Viktoriya Goldentul

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