The Ascent (1977)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Ascent (1977) -- L. Shepitko

During the German invasion of the U. S. S. R. during WWII (circa 1942), two Russian partisans leave their small stranded group (including women and children) to search for food at a nearby farm.  One (Sotnikov) is a soldier and former maths teacher with a terrible wheezing cough, the other (Rybak) is earthier and sturdier and leads the way.  Their path leads through snowy woods and fields (shot stunningly in high contrast B&W) and when they are accosted by a small band of Germans, their only escape is to roll through the snow (and Rybak must drag Sotnikov after he is shot in the leg).  Sotnikov does manage to shoot one German before their escape, which ends up being a problem for them when they are later captured.  Director Larissa Shepitko (who died only 2 years later in a car accident at 41) provides viewers with a raw and visceral experience laced with expressionistic almost hallucinatory touches (and experimental film-making), as we face death at nearly every turn with these characters and observe how they hauntingly try to come to terms with their mortality.  For Sotnikov, acceptance of death is easy but only because he knows that he has sacrificed for his principles and taken the moral high road (indeed, he becomes a Christ-like figure by the end of the film). For Rybak, death is something to be avoided and, by any means necessary, including betrayal (and he becomes a Judas-like figure as the film takes on the qualities of a parable as it nears its conclusion). In the end, for me, Shepitko’s film loses something as it becomes more transparently allegorical -- the existential intensity of the experiences and the difficulty of the moral decisions alone were enough to elicit a feverish spiritual transcendence without having to reference Christ on the cross so directly.  Of course, in the Soviet Union in the Seventies, such a move may have been brave and perhaps liberating in its defiance – or it may have been accepted as “nationalistic” partisan pride.  For film students, however, The Ascent can be enjoyed wholly as a masterclass in cinematic technique.