Ambiguous films about the war A real gift was made by Belarusian filmmakers to their audience on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus. And although it was more than ten years ago, the themes raised in film novels will never lose their relevance. In fact, the Great Patriotic War in our current view is a retreat, a turning point, and subsequent victories, but it was not only at the fronts in the soldiers’ trenches. Belarusian cinema is traditionally characterized by the theme of guerrilla resistance, but this film is not about that. When we talk about war – any, not only the Second or First World War, Civil or any other, we completely forget about how the ordinary population lives at this time, by the fact that they remained in their native huts, that for various reasons they could not go into the forests or go into the underground.
The video almanac "Territory of Resistance" consists of three novels: "Mother", "War" and "Fear". They are united by the common title “Three Stories from Non-Front Life” and the theme of the resistance of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War. No, there are no guerrilla ambushes, shootouts or heroic acts (although our characters will have to transgress themselves). Our heroes are ordinary people, whether it is a girl suffering from constant harassment by a German soldier (Kinonovaella “War”) or a mother of two sons trying to save what is left of the family at any cost (the novella “Mother”).
The problems raised here do not have an unambiguous answer, and the actions of the heroes do not at all fit with universal ideas, but they all have one justification - War, erasing any concept of humanity, war is mean and vile. What struck me most was the part of The War, in which a lonely farmwoman was brutally raped by a German soldier who continued to persecute and abuse her. The Nazis killed all her relatives, and the girl is forced to carry under her heart a child, the child of one of them - whom she hated and passionately wanted to kill. Nine months of anger and fear, constant harassment and shown "care." We can hardly blame her for what she ultimately did to the child by drowning him in a river, for both the girl and the German were punished. There's a lot to think about, though. There is something to think about in the novel about a mother who is trying to protect her children from going to the partisans, because this in her understanding will only predetermine their imminent death - surrenders her offspring to a relative-policeman to hurt. And he does not hesitate to act according to the instructions. The last film novel (Fear) is inferior to the first two in terms of moral and psychological load, although the problems of fear and responsibility are raised in it. Even among the police, there are people.
Over the past decades, there have been many such films in Belarusian cinema, in which the actors are ordinary people, with their own weaknesses and character, forced to make difficult choices in very difficult circumstances. Movies ambiguous, but no doubt necessary ("Enemies", "In the fog", "Franz + Pauline", "Occupation. Mysteries", etc.). Many thanks to the Belarusian Video Center film company, which mainly specializes in the production of documentary films, for this art almanac about the war. By the way, each of the novels is preceded by footage from military newsreels revealing the lives of people in the zone of occupation.
9 out of 10