by Allan Fish
(USSR 1959 89m) DVD1/2
Aka. Ballada o Soldate
Fixing mother’s roof
p uncredited d Grigori Chukrai w Valentin Yoshov, Grigori Chukrai ph Vladimir Nikolaiev, Era Saveleva ed M.Tomofeyeva m Mikhail Ziv art B.Nemechek
Vladimir Ivashev (Alyosha), Zhanna Prokhorenko (Shura), Antonina Maximova (Alyosha’s mother), Nikolai Kryuchkov (General), Yevgeni Urbanski (invalid),
I remember very vividly my first viewing of Ballad of a Soldier back in 1994. BBC2 were showing a series of films with various Hollywood dignitaries where they talked about their favourite films, with one shown afterwards in accompaniment. I remember Anjelica Huston picked The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Marty Scorsese Duel in the Sun and Clint Eastwood Yojimbo. Anyone whose cinematic knowledge is worth anything will see the connection with them, but when it came to Michael Douglas, he picked Ballad of a Soldier. It was a film that affected him deeply and only a week or so later I remember someone writing into the Radio Times after likewise viewing the film that night and saying how it recalled their first seeing the film over 30 years previously. The point is that, once seen, Ballad of a Soldier is hard to forget. Other Russian films may be more lyrical (Earth), influential (The Battleship Potemkin) or more ambitious (War and Peace), but none was more universal. Its tale of doomed love, familial devotion and the waste of war is relative to any time and any place.
For his bravery in the face of tank fire, a Russian soldier during World War II is granted a week’s leave to return home to fix his mother’s roof, before returning to the front. Realising most of his leave will be spent travelling to and from home, so he sets off immediately, but he becomes sidetracked by a young girl, the two falling in love but not declaring their feelings, let alone consummating them. Though he gets home, he hasn’t the time to mend the roof, only to kiss his mother and return to the front.
From the outset we know that our hero is doomed, which brings fatalism not only over the narrative as a whole but over the individual scenes. We feel his relief when he realises his girl has stayed behind and missed the train, too, simply to be with him, but also recognise his pain after realising he will never see her again after saying goodbye. As we know it really will be goodbye, the poignancy is intensified. Of course Chukhrai’s camera is criticising the war, but also the people in it, none more so than the wives and sweethearts who give away their fidelity so readily and think nothing of their men away at the front. This was nothing new, having been seen before in the likes of The Best Years of Our Lives and recently in The Thin Red Line, but it’s interesting to note many such films are about World War II, as after World War I the world has lost its innocence. After all, during World War I popular cinema consisted mainly of Chaplin comedies, whereas during World War II cynicism, both in comedy and in film noir, was the order of the day.
Despite this, Ballad of a Soldier is about purity, and our young lovers are honest enough to haunt us still, years later, like that Radio Times reader. The performances given by the two leads are nothing short of miraculous, especially considering their inexperience, with Prokhorenko a particularly natural delight as the Russian Rapunzel with hair that should carry a government health warning. The photography achieves a remarkable clarity and real sense of the Russian countryside that has not been since Dovzhenko’s day, but Chukhrai deserves the most praise for the way he manipulates the emotions without ever forcing it. Everything is so understated that one cannot help but be moved. At the end, though one could spout a soliloquy on our departed hero, we leave it instead to the narrator; “he was, and in our memory will forever remain, a soldier…” Thirty-eight years later Chukhrai’s son Pavel followed in his father’s footsteps with The Thief, which was similarly lyrical and simplistic, with another soulful heroine in Yekaterina Rednikova (though being 1997 she now had to bare her breasts). Though it was not in the league of his father’s masterpiece, Grigori would have been proud.
Never heard of it. Sounds great.
Indeed Jenny, it is a great film. It’s one you will soon have, I assure you.
I own this DVD, and I can readily agree with Allan’s high assessment of it. It’s powerful, but very subtle, as is suggested in the review.
With it’s poetry and meditative substance set during the war, (and that mother and son motif) I would say this film is very close to that Russian film that was at the Film Forum earlier this year. The name is Alexandre. Very nice review, and liked the comparisons to the other war movies.
Now this one is a surprise for this list, but it does sound like a sleeper. I never got around to seeing this, but I will put it on my netflix queue.
Allan, a nicely written post, as usual. I haven’t seen this film but have been aware of it for quite a while and have read good things about it. I’ve noticed that several of the films you’ve written about in this series have an anti-war theme. Is this something you are drawn to?
Not having seen “Ballad,” I can’t comment about it, but I do have a couple of tangential comments concerning the BBC show you describe. I was astounded to read that “Duel in the Sun” is Scorsese’s favorite movie. I saw it awhile back and found it absolutely dreadful. I wrote a (for me) scathing review of it at The Movie Projector.
About Michael Douglas and “Ballad” and why this choice didn’t surprise me too much. Like Douglas, I went to the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was a senior when I was a freshman. I recall seeing him the first week I was there in a drama dept. production of Pinter’s “The Caretaker,” in which he played the thuggish younger brother. Now, in the student residential community next to the campus was one of those repertory theater/art houses that were found in college towns at that time. They showed two programs a week, each a double feature of two films by a well-known international director, or occasionally two films from the same country. I’m wondering if this is where Douglas saw “Ballad,” as it’s just the kind of movie they showed there. Also, in Santa Barbara at the Riviera Theater there was a Janus film festival for a month each fall. Every night they showed a double feature of a director’s works from the Janus (now Criterion) collection. That’s where I first saw “Wild Strawberries,” paired with “Through a Glass Darkly.” So it is also possible that he saw “Ballad” there. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know for sure, but I can’t help wondering.