A good forgotten movie The film was forgotten for ideological reasons. History, where the Soviet power is an undoubted "good" and the forest brothers - the same undoubted "evil" in our time in the Baltics is not popular.
If we try to rise above ideological clichés, as we do when we watch, for example, “Our Among Strangers...” or even some “Elusive Avengers,” and consider the film as a work of art, then it deserves the highest praise.
First, the film is atmospheric. This heavy, slow, gloomy, viscous, Baltic or - wider - specific North European manner of presentation. What many of us appreciate is Kaurismäki’s The Match Factory Girl, Jarmusch’s Helsinki novella Night on Earth and Keslevsky’s Short Film.
Second, it's the best suspense I've ever seen in a movie. The means of achieving this effect, of course, do not lie in the plane 'the housewife descends with a flashlight into the basement (option: rises to the attic), because there is something infernal creaking'.
Thirdly, it is a brilliant acting. I don’t even know which of the actors to praise more, the ensemble is important here, and it’s beautiful.