Ballad of a Soldier is heavily influenced by the silent era technical proficiency of Soviet film making and keeps that spirit of dialectical montage alive. It has absolutely impeccable direction and cinematography by Grigori Tchoukhrai. Using low angles and shooting in profile Chukhrai creates expressive and moving black and white imagery. Chukhrai builds to what is the perfect visual moment for the emotional truth of the film. Those parts are marvelous, moving and emotionally overwhelming to see. The camera moves are smooth and so effective you hardly notice them happening at all. The editing is quite potent as well perfectly putting scenes together to often create impressionistic montages. There were even some double exposure for some of the sequences that…

Ballad of a Soldier is heavily influenced by the silent era technical proficiency of Soviet film making and keeps that spirit of dialectical montage alive. It has absolutely impeccable direction and cinematography by Grigori Tchoukhrai. Using low angles and shooting in profile Chukhrai creates expressive and moving black and white imagery. Chukhrai builds to what is the perfect visual moment for the emotional truth of the film. Those parts are marvelous, moving and emotionally overwhelming to see. The camera moves are smooth and so effective you hardly notice them happening at all. The editing is quite potent as well perfectly putting scenes together to often create impressionistic montages. There were even some double exposure for some of the sequences that…

67/100

One of those films that drifts along, seemingly satisfied with being a gentle humanist observation of human behaviour in trying conditions. As such, it can be a little clunky at times - such as the initial meeting between the young soldier on his way home on leave and the girl on her way to see her fiance, which is awkwardly staged and rather broadly performed by the otherwise winning actors - and lacking in a genuinely cohesive artistic vision.

But the there are little moments that make the journey worthwhile - the soldiers in the train car sharing cigarettes and joking about our heroes exploits, and the galvanizing effect that has on an injured, self-pitying soldier along for the…

Soldiers are not just soldiers they are our brother, father, sister, and most of it; son. On of the soldier is the central of this story; Private Alyosha Skvortsov (Vladimir Ivashov). A young soldier who happen to destroy two German tanks, thus is given a medal by his superior. However Alyosha wants something more, he wanted a leave so he can fix the roof of his mother's house. With his youthful looks and naivety, Alyosha is representing the common soldier from the lower class of Russian society.

Given the leave, Alyosha went into a road trip where he met so many people and small adventures that shows him that in this terrible times, kindness still existed. Behind the lines of…