The soldier's ballad

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Movie
German title The soldier's ballad
Original title Баллада о солдате / Ballada o soldiers
Country of production Soviet Union
original language Russian
Publishing year 1959
length 88 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Grigory Chuchrai
script Valentin Yezhov
Grigory Tschuchrai
production Mosfilm
music Mikhail Siv
camera Vladimir Nikolayev
Era Saveljewa
cut Maria Timofeeva
occupation

The Soldier's Ballad is a 1959 Soviet film drama directed by Grigory Chuchrai .

action

A mother in mourning walks to the only road that connects her village with the outside world. She is not expecting anyone, however, as her son fell afar off during World War II . The film tells the story of this soldier in retrospect.

The 19-year-old operator Aljoscha Skworzow reports four enemy tanks despite the danger to his troops. He then escapes, but manages to destroy two of the tanks. The general proposed him for an award for his performance. Aljoscha, however, wishes instead to be able to travel to his mother in Sosnovka for a day. He couldn't say goodbye to her when he came to the front. In addition, she wrote in a letter that the roof of the house was leaking. He wants to repair the roof and then return to the front. The general gives him four days to travel there and back, and two days to repair the roof. Aljoscha is on his way.

Soldier Petrov gives him a letter and the entire soap ration of his unit for his wife Yelisaveta; Aljoscha promises to hand over the letter and soap at a stopover. When changing the train for the first time, Aljoscha meets Vasja, who lost a leg in the war and now does not want to return to his wife. Aljoscha helps him to calm down and witnesses how Wasja's wife embraces her husband overjoyed, because the only thing that counts is that he survived. The onward journey turns out to be difficult for Aljoscha, since the next train that goes near his village is a hay transport for the front horses. He is only allowed to travel by bribing the train post with tinned meat. At another stop, the young Shura jumps on the train as a stowaway. Because she believes that Alyosha wants to rape her, she throws her luggage off the moving train and tries to jump after it, which Alyosha prevents. She claims to him that she wants to visit her fiancé, who is the pilot. Both get to know each other better over the ride and gain trust in each other. At a stop, Aljoscha wants to fetch water and is delayed, so that the train continues without him. An old woman takes him to the next station. Shura is waiting for him here; she has his luggage with her.

Alyosha remembers that he has to give the soap to Petrov's wife, Yelisaveta. He is taken aback when he realizes that Petrow's wife is cheating on her husband with another man. He takes the soap back. He reports to Petrov's sick father of the supposed popularity and successes of his son, whom he doesn't really know, and promises to keep Yelisaveta's behavior a secret. Aljoscha and Shura separate at the station. Shura admits that he is actually visiting her aunt. She lied to him because she was afraid of him at the beginning. Only on the train does Aljoscha realize that Shura wanted to confess her love to him. However, it is too late to get out, especially since Aljoscha has already lost so much time on the way that he could only stay one night with his mother. The train is bombed around ten kilometers from his village. Aljoscha saves numerous travelers and sets out to his village the next morning. He is picked up by a driver who is about to wait for him. Aljoscha only has a short time to hug his mother and exchange a few words with her. After a few minutes, Alyosha leaves his village again. As he drives away, he promises his mother to return.

production

The Ballad of the Soldier was the second feature film, after The Last Shot , that Grigori Tschuchrai made as a director. After an accident by Tschuchrais, the filming of the material had to be postponed for half a year, so that the main roles were newly cast. Instead of Oleg Strischenow and Isolda Iswizkaja , the two 17-year-old actors Vladimir Iwaschow and Shanna Prokhorenko took on the leading roles. Both were still studying at the time - he at the Gerasimov Institute for Cinematography and she at the Moscow Art Theater . The Filmbauten come from Boris Nemetschek , the costumes created Lyudmila Rjaschentsewa . The film was shot in Moscow and the Mosfilm studios.

The film was made during the so-called thaw period and showed the efforts to overcome so-called socialist realism both in terms of content and form . Tschuchrai does not portray the Second World War as a Great Patriotic War , denies the idea of ​​“solidarity of the Soviet people” in the person of the cheating wife and presents love not as a “defensive impulse”, but as a “hopeless interlude in merciless events”. Among other things, an opening scene in the film in which Aljoscha flees from a tank became known: "In order to make the unbridled fear of the persecuted evident, Tschuchrai turned the camera incessantly until the picture finally stood upside down."

The soldier's ballad was released in Soviet cinemas on December 1, 1959 and was shown at the Cannes International Film Festival on May 7, 1960 . In the GDR the film was released on June 10, 1960; The German theatrical release was on August 11, 1960. ZDF showed the film on February 24, 1964, while DFF 2 first broadcast the film on June 28, 1973 on East German television. In May 2008 the film was released on DVD by Icestorm in Germany .

criticism

Criticism from the GDR praised the film, with which “another high point in Soviet production was reached”. The ballad of the soldier had "set an unforgettable monument to the heroism and humanity of the Soviet soldier," wrote New Germany ; the film is "a work of art of rare purity and size, a gem of the film."

For the Federal German film service , Die Ballade vom Soldier was a “ballad of a fool who passes all tests and is rewarded with pure love for it”; the story is "touching and believable thanks to its psychological differentiation, although the poetic implementation - especially the music - occasionally slips into the pathetic." Cinema called the film "film art full of touching humanity".

Awards (selection)

At the Cannes International Film Festival, The Soldier's Ballade received the award for the best film about youth in 1960 and was also shown in the competition for the Palme d'Or . At the San Francisco International Film Festival that same year, the film won the Golden Gate Award in the categories of "Best Film" and "Best Director". As best director, Tschuchrai was awarded a gold plaque from the David di Donatello film prize in 1960 . At the USSR Film Festival, The Soldier's Ballad was awarded the First Prize in May 1960.

In 1961 the film won a Bodil for Best European Film and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the Samuel Goldwyn International Award category. In 1961, Grigory Chuchrai received the Lenin Prize for his directorial work .

The Soldier's Ballad was nominated for an Oscar in 1962 for Best Original Screenplay. Also in 1962 he won a British Film Academy Award for Best Picture ; Vladimir Ivashov was nominated for the British Film Award in the Best Foreign Leading Actor category.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The war as an everyday experience - The Soldier's Ballad (1959) . In: Thomas Lindenberger (Ed.): Mass media in the Cold War: Actors, images, resonances . Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2006, pp. 99-100.
  2. ↑ G. Sibirzow: In Mosfilm guest . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 27, 1960, p. 7.
  3. ↑ New in Germany: Ballad from the Soldier (Soviet Union). In: Der Spiegel , No. 34, 1960, p. 60.
  4. ↑ The great dictator . In: Der Spiegel , No. 21, 1961, p. 82.
  5. ↑ Culture news in a nutshell . In: Berliner Zeitung , March 1, 1960, p. 6.
  6. ↑ The Soldier's Ballad . In: Neues Deutschland , June 11, 1960, p. 1.
  7. ↑ Horst Knietzsch: The ballad of the soldier . In: Neues Deutschland , June 12, 1960, p. 6.
  8. ↑ The Ballad of the Soldier. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ The ballad from the soldier on cinema.de
  10. ↑ Culture news in a nutshell . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 29, 1960, p. 6.
  11. ↑ See goldenglobes.com