hte-trasme This was a touching and a subtle film. Made a few years before the end of the Soviet Union and set at the cresting height of Stalin's power (and, as the title suggests, just before the looming World War), it manages the trick of being at the same time both nostalgic for a bygone time and the youths who lives through it, but also unflinching about the horrors that the political environment caused people to commit against each other. I don't know for sure and I haven't read the story that was the basis for the film, but I get the strong feeling that it was at least semi- autobiographical on the part of the author, and everyone involved in the film does a strong job of communicating his mixed feelings of affection and horror for that time. The photography alternates between sepia monochrome (usually at school) and color (at home or out in nature), and it's the first time I've seen this trick used in a way that works not only well but also subtly -- it underscores in an understated way the themes that the film raises of humanity, freedom, and choice versus duty to the state. While it raises these themes, it scrupulously manages to avoid being didactic about them. We are allowed to draw our own conclusions on what the characters discuss, which is pointedly what they themselves are not allowed to do. Touchingly, it becomes clear that those who are drawn in to acting so in humanly do so because the ideals of the revolution that they fought for are so dear to them that they cannot bear to imagine it betrayed. In one touching moment we are reminded that it was Lenin himself who warned against a black-and-white, right-or-wrong definition of what the truth is, and it painfully obvious that that is not at all the philosophy that has been enacted in the state that pays him service.

AncaH I never expected to be so impressed by this picture after reading the description. I often avoid to read reviews before watching the film in order to have my own uninfluenced opinions. This movie is like a thorn which you just stepped in. It's about the freedom, of having questions, wanting to find the truth and the repercussions of these in a Stalinist regime. The alternation of black and whit with the colored picture show exactly what I was saying: the difference between liberty, happiness shreds and marginal thinking, but also the difference between a great intellect and a small-minded one. The music in the film is also great, achieving a perfect conjunction with the images and the surroundings, the society. It's also a perfect explanation of the presumption of innocence and how society arrives to judge in advance, disregarding the collateral damage.

mvp9 its a harsh view of the life lead in stalin's russia. The title indicates that a war was on even before Hitler invaded (it takes place in '40 before russia was invaded). 1984 in its true, real, form where people are so penetrated by the dogma around them, they are virtually willing to denounce their children and words like truth and justice are unknown. (one of the girls asks her mother, "what is istina?" which means 'higher truth') the suffering befalling the kids in the movie is tragic and heartfelt. Its excellently done and the acting is superb (in the russian style). There is a reason why it is rated higher than godfather.

snowball-15 That is a wonderful movie that breaks your heart. The story takes us in the last autumn before Germany invaded USSR. A group of high school kids with their eternal business of first love, classes, leaders and dreamers is suddenly thrown out of peaceful existence. A father of the most likable girl is taken by KGB and she has to renounce him publicly. She can not betray him and so she invites all her true friends (those who did not desert her for being a daughter of the enemy of the state) for a picnic. She does not say so, but t is a farewell. After that she takes an overdose of sleeping pills. In an unbelievable twist of fate (KGB almost never released its victims) her father is released in few days. The story runs about a week, but boy, how fast this kids had to grow up. It is like the innocence of their existence was lost. One day they lived in the most perfect country, where justice and equality ruled, or so they were brought up to believe. And next they new that it all were lies and innocent people were destroyed by regime without mercy. There was also problem of loyalty. Who do you stay loyal to, your friend or your country? The movie ends with few laconic lines of information what happened to the rest of the class during the war. Somebody was burned in a tank, somebody was hanged for participation in resistance, somebody became an ace pilot. It is a great movie, see it if you have an opportunity. May be you would learn something you did not know about people from the USSR and about this period of history.