1977 ‘Восхождение’ Directed by Larisa Shepitko
Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.
Voskhozhdeniye, L'Ascension, De Opgang, Ascensione, La ascensión, Ascensão, A Ascensão, Ascensión humana, Pretul vietii, Die Erhöhung, Oppstigningen, 고양, Сходження, Извисяване, Vzestup, Aufstieg, Kálvária, L'ascesa, Wniebowstąpienie, A Ascenção, Starkare än döden, Tırmanış, 上升
USSR
USSR
I had never heard of this film until reading James Schamus's top ten list on Criterion.com.
A powerful film with incredible sequences. The opening five minutes has it all... exposition, beautiful reveals, dramatic framing and cutting and an opening title sequence that plays over a gun fight. Not sure I've ever seen that before.
Sadly, director Larisa Shepitko passed at the age of 41 in a road accident. Imagine the classics she would have graced us with. I'm looking forward to watching her early film Krylya (Wings) which is also on the Criterion Channel.
Won Berlin's Golden Bear in 1977.
Watched on the Criterion Channel.
Amaranth's #10 Film Selection for Edgar
Potentially one of the 50 best war films in human history.
Japan and Roberto Rossellini were two of the three parties around the world that reached an unprecedented level of humanism in war-themed manifestos. The third party was the Soviet Union. This classification in no way intends to diminish the many facets of war and its overwhelming power at transforming the human soul. On the contrary, my statement is aimed specifically towards humanism war testaments. If the situation forced us to narrow down Japan to one single filmmaker, then the colossal The Human Condition (1959-1961) would pop out from a sea of masterpieces, and Kobayashi would reign supreme. This is, of course, not official,…
From beginning to end, this was an incredible experience. I've never felt more helpless as a bystander watching the existential reflections of war, demise, and human nature. The premise is so simple and raw, yet it managed to take such an emotional hold on me as I watched the main protagonists' hour-by-hour experiences. Furthermore, the visuals are breathtakingly incredible, with every shot eliciting the desired feelings and highlighting the cold, expansive rural locations. Aside from its superb formal components and intensity, few films have left me with such a horrific sense of despair and evil. This has to be one of the best war films I've ever seen.
The Ascent is a holy experience that exudes undeniable human touch, philosophical brilliance and timeless anti-war sentiments. It transcends the worldly concept of human suffering and sacrifice into something everlasting and spiritual, in the most melancholy and memorable way possible.
Set in the snow-covered Soviet wilderness, The Ascent features two Soviet soldiers' intense tasks as they fight against the relentlessness from both the nature and the pursuing Nazis. From the very beginning, The Ascent has made it clear, with its poetic, understated style and well thought-out framing, that it's going to be a Tarkovsky-lite slow-burn, rather than a confrontational Come and See or Spielberg action odyssey. We follow the two soldiers, both young and inexperienced, as they react in opposite…
It rarely gets bleaker than The Ascent. Larisa Shepitko's tale of perseverance in the face of imminent death surprised me on several counts. For the first half of the movie, I couldn't figure out the significance of the title. If anything, Shepitko presents its exact opposite. The barren, snow-covered landscape, where death lurks in every grinding step man takes, devours the movie in its all-consuming white death. The shaky camera movement enhances every sound made in the white silence as the camera zooms in on man's face and outlines the thin crust of ice scratching his cheek with its cold tendrils, stretching, reaching, with one goal in mind: to get to the innermost layer: the spirit; and to break it.…
tremendous film, i cried the last 20 minutes because i was so overwhelmed with emotion. also, i did make a video about my trip to the theater to see this alongside come and see 🫣
The final moments in this incredible film are some of the most devastating i've ever experienced in a film, so full of self-hatred and soul-crushing personal torment that so deeply affected me. War is fucked up. Not sure what else to say, seek out this extremely powerful, grim and very human war film, or not if you don't want to feel completely miserable.
Larisa Shepitko's depiction of humanity in the grip of war left me shaken, a shell of my former self! Feeling weak my psyche spent, a truly humbling experience to witness a man Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) facing death and do so with such extraordinary grace, integrity and honor!
The tight shots of Sotnikov's face with an almost christ like aura about him was as haunting as it was beautiful!
Beautifully shot in monochrome with locations to match, from the whites of the winter landscapes covered in deep snow to the almost blackness of dark cellars, The Ascent is an incredibly well-made war narrative concerning extreme fear and great bravery. This sadly proved to be the final film from director Larisa Shepitko and based on a Vasil Bykaŭ’s novel entitled Sotniko, initially published in nineteen seventy.
It contains a carefully considered sound design that heightens laborious breathing of soldiers and amplifies the intense crunching noise of snow underfoot and paints a picture of extraordinary miserableness. Yet, it still manages to find a visual elegance in the land of snow-covered forests near the historic city of Vladimir Oblast. There are elements…
"Don't crawl in shit; you'll never wash it off."
Always spoilers.
After facing heavy losses against German forces in a subzero Belarusian forest in 1942, a group of beleaguered partisans sends out a two-man party in search of comestibles for the starving civilians whom they are attempting to guide to an unoccupied region. Though Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) are able to requisition what appears to be a lamb from the apparently collaborationist community headman, they are soon detected by a German patrol unit, and a shootout occurs in which Sotnikov is injured and one of the Germans is killed. The desperate search party then prevail upon a local mother of three for protection but are shortly discovered…
