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dweemeister · 6 years

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The Ascent (1977, Soviet Union)

In 1939, representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow. The pact was to guarantee a policy of mutual non-aggression towards the two nations, also stipulating that neither nation would ally itself with an enemy of the other. Countries across Europe not yet conquered by either nation looked on in fear and disbelief – there was little to stop the Germans or the Soviets. Yet the lack of violence does not necessarily mean peace. German-Soviet relations deteriorated as soon as both Hitler and Stalin began to annex neighboring states, with the Nazis invading the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

Larisa Shepitko would have been three years old when the pact was dissolved. Born in Soviet Ukraine, her lasting memories of the war included constant hunger, emotional distress, displacement. In 1954 after graduating high school, she enrolled at the esteemed Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, with Alexander Dovzhenko (1929′s Arsenal, 1930′s Earth) as her mentor. A fellow Ukrainian, Dovzhenko’s social realism and use of stark imagery (as any giant of the silent film era mastered) with religious influences would have the most lasting influence on Shepitko’s brief directorial career. The Ascent – her final film, and her breakthrough work among Western audiences – is the confluence of Shepitko’s memories of wartime and the expertise she gained while studying with Dovzhenko at VGIK. What appears to be a straightforward war film on paper is anything but, as Shepitko demonstrates with her singular artistry.

It is the winter of 1942 in the Byelorussian SSR (modern-day Belarus). A company of partisans is retreating from a horde of Nazi soldiers when they finally have a moment of quiet. Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) are ordered to search for food in a nearby village. Along the way, the men encounter more German soldiers – Sotnikov incurs a leg wound, and Rybak drags his comrade to a nearby home. Inside the home is Demchikha (Lyudmila Polyakova), who has three children. As the film progresses, Sotnikov and Rybak will be in the custody of Portnov (Anatoly Solonitsyn) – a former director of the local club-house (in Soviet parlance, a cultural and recreational institute) who has become the leader of the local Byelorussian Auxiliary Police. In other words, Portnov is working for a Nazi-affiliated paramilitary comprised of other local defectors, tasked with keeping the locals pliant, staging public executions to those aiding the Soviet Union.

Like a Dante-esque scene, Sotnikov and Rybak are constantly surrounded by mounds of knee-deep snow and trees long shorn of leaves. The color white is omnipresent except for the film’s few indoor shots. This harsh landscape reveals the character of those who dare to brave it, whether or not they escape death. The Ascent flares the senses – especially sight – early and often. Long stretches of the film’s scenery contain nobody except our two protagonists. Cinematographers Vladimir Chukhnov (1978′s On Thursday and Never Again) and Pavel Lebeshev (1977′s An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano, 1998′s The Barber of Siberia) make use of hand-held cinematography for many of these outdoor scenes and especially the firefights – hand-held cinematography remained a rarity in cinema anywhere and everywhere until the 2000s. Their camerawork makes the few, brief battles more visceral, increasing the impact of the gunfire and any wounds incurred. After Sotnikov and Rybak are captured, the cinematography and editing (the editor is uncredited) slow down. Locked in a cell with other partisan-sympathetic villagers, their physical and mental imprisonment is captured by stilled camerawork and fewer cuts. The final minutes of The Ascent features a stunning lack of cuts – forcing the viewer to internalize all the characters’ emotions as they are being led to their fates.

The film is based on Belarusian author Vasil Bykaŭ’s novella Sotnikov, and was adapted to the screen by Shepitko and Yuri Klepikov (1966′s The Story of Asya Klyachina, 1972′s Dauriya). One might expect The Ascent to be littered with Soviet propaganda and, given how the Soviet Union treated war movies (set in any era, such as its treatment of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Alexander Nevsky), such assumptions would be understandable. But Shepitko’s films, even at their most political, are rooted in principle and humanity. The famously irreligious Soviet government and its censors seemed to have missed (or, perhaps, let slide because of how one character is portrayed) the Christian allegory in the Shepitko and Klepikov screenplay. Sotnikov and Rybak – how they act in the face of temptation, their sense of duty – resemble a wartime Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot (just pretend Jesus’ eleven other disciples never existed). The faithful partisan between the two of them is lit and framed in respects to his martyrdom. But their dynamic is never simplistic as they remain grounded by the military and political realities of their mission and service to those they wish to protect. Shepitko’s approach probably appeased the Soviet censors – after a loosening of standards under Nikita Khrushchev, the cultural censors under Leonid Brezhnev were returning to Stalin-era guidelines – while employing her signature triumphing of human virtues. Bravery and cowardice are juxtaposed throughout the final half of The Ascent. It is to Shepitko’s credit that she makes her hero’s actions unassuming, her coward’s betrayal understandable.

Indirectly but intentionally, The Ascent notes how Nazi Germany’s atrocity-laden campaign against the Soviet Union has affected how the latter has treated its enemies – foreign and domestic – in the years during and after the war (does this mean that The Ascent has ulterior themes criticizing the Soviet government? I don’t believe so). The Nazis – through Portnov and his subordinates – attempt to turn conquered citizens and captured partisans against each other, engage in whataboutism, and have no compunctions about using violence to solve problems. In the final minutes, the film’s Soviet Judas is distraught to see how one seemingly easy decision has enabled injustice. This Judas figure believes he can reverse, maybe compensate for what horror he has been party to. But ultimately, he accepts that he cannot be what he was, and finds absurdity and tragedy in his actions.

Boris Plotnikov (1988′s Heart of a Dog) makes his crediting acting debut in The Ascent is magnificent as Sotnikov. His distant stare and deliberate movements suggest weariness – of the war, of the world. So too as Vladimir Gostyukhin (1991′s Close to Eden) as Rybak – although the greatest moments of his performance appear in the dying minutes of the film, as he struggles with an internal conflict. Anatoly Solonitsyn, as Portnov, is the hard-nosed defector – with no expression suggesting any second thoughts on the devastation he has wreaked on his neighbors, his former friends and colleagues. Solonitsyn’s supporting performance pierces through the film’s moral center, subordinating it to the machinal madness of Nazi policy towards its enemies.

A fascinating, sparsely-cued score by Soviet-German composer Alfred Schnittke complements a film that I would have otherwise imagined to have no music. Schnittke was primarily known for his work in classical music rather than film and television scores. But Schnittke, unlike earlier Soviet composers like Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, is not so much interested in nineteenth-century-influenced melodies and rousing idea- or character-driven leitmotifs, but texture, atonalism, and the use of multiple styles of music at once (“polystylism”; which Schnittke is often credited as innovating). Given the discordant and numbing nature of The Ascent, Schnittke’s music – which might be a difficult listen for audiences who are not familiar with the difference with “classical music” and “contemporary classical music” – empowers scenes of physical and spiritual desolation. This is a score that, in the few instances that it appears (especially in a moment resembling Jesus’ last steps to Calvary), is allowed to be front and center when it does.

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Larisa Shepitko would not be able to enjoy the subsequent acclaim this film (and her career) would eventually find in the West. This overdue appreciation of Shepitko’s work can be attributed to the lack of awareness of Soviet cinema beyond certain directors and attitudes towards female directors. Shepitko, the director of one of the greatest war films of all time, was killed in a car accident in 1979 while scouting shooting locations for an adaptation of Valentin Rasputin’s novel Farewell to Matyora. The accident also took the lives of cinematographer Chukhnov, production designer Yuri Fomenko, and three other members of the crew. Shepitko’s husband, director Elem Klimov, would finish his late spouse’s work in 1983 – two years before the release of his shattering war film Come and See (1985).

This is a film arguing for moral goodness – something unmentioned in Soviet communist ideology. The Ascent, filled with religious visual and thematic allusions, is as spiritual as any Soviet film could possibly be. Its spirituality is displayed and tested in the theater of warfare, making any viewer of this film go through the whirlwind of emotions. Abandonment, desolation, hopelessness, regret all flow through the screen, speaking to those heeding Shepitko’s appeal for conscientiousness when confronted with cruelty.

My rating: 10/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. The Ascent is the one hundred and fifty-first feature-length or short film I have rated a ten on imdb (this write-up was expedited before the write-ups on the films that will be the 149th and 150th).

#The Ascent #Larisa Shepitko #Boris Plotnikov #Vladimir Gostyukhin #Sergei Yakolev #Lyudmila Polyakova #Viktoriya Goldentul #Anatoly Solonitsyn #Yuri Klepikov #Vladimir Chukhnov #Pavel Lebeshev #Vasil Bykau #Alfred Shnittke #TCM #My Movie Odyssey

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