Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Claudio Carvalho During World War II, the nineteen year-old Pvt. Alyosha Skvortsov (Volodya Ivashov) destroys two German tanks in the front and the general gives a medal to him. However Alyosha asks for a leave to visit his mother instead of the medal and the general gives six days to him. During his journey home, Alyosha helps a cripple dashed veteran to meet his wife; embarks as clandestine in a train and falls in love with the stowaway Shura (Zhanna Prokhorenko) that is traveling in the same wagon to visit her aunt; meets the unfaithful wife of Pavlov, a soldier that is in the front and misses her, to give soap to her. When he arrives home, it is time to return to the front in a journey with no return. "Ballada o soldate" is a film with the heartbreaking story of the return home of a teenage soldier to visit his mother and repair the roof of her house. Alyosha is charismatic and very gentle. The plot is realistic and the dramatic conclusion is very sad. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Balada do Soldado" ("The Ballad of a Soldier")

Kirpianuscus a version of Odissey. the way is more important than the destination. a version of Romeo and Juliet. same rules, same choices. a Soviet war film at first sigh, like many others. in fact, profound different. because its delicate poetry, the dark aspects from Union every day life, the meetings of Aliosha with different social cases, the dialogs, the force of images are more than beautiful, touching or seductive. it is a film about silences and choices. about innocence as the best manner to define the world. and for transform it. a film who must see. for the final feeling. for its special form of beauty. and as tool for discover a page from East's past. because it is not only a film about Russia. but about the sensitivity from a part of Europe.

Klaire Howell War is Tragic, thousands experience it, maybe even the whole world; but this isn't what Grigori Chukrai wanted to show. He made the film an inmate experience, with slow moments, suspension, and room for intellectual thought all through the personal individual experience of Alyosha. Alyosha was young solider, from the country-side who managed to take down two enemy tanks. As his reward instead of a medal he received leave to visit his mother and fix her leaky roof. We begin the film with this scene and the knowledge that Alyosha would be leaving on his last leave, for he would die in the war. From his realistic heroism, his simple desire to see his mother again, and his death we know we are following the last days of a journey chalk full with all the experiences of young life and love. When we hear of war on the TV or a friend who knows someone who has died in a war we don't think of that individual life that was lost, but rather about the death toll or big picture. Ballad of a solider takes you away from all of that to see the faces that make up the military force. In this case the lives that Russia lost were so much like Alyosha young and kind, not a killing machine.

ashi4782 I know it is a very grand statement to say that this is the greatest anti-war movie made so far. I have a good reason for that though. Every anti-war movie has showed the fighting and showed the killing of people. However, this mostly focuses on the physical faults of war rather than emotional faults. The excessive violence in other movies also numbs the audience to gore and violence. Ballad of a Soldier keeps the violence and bloodshed to a minimum. Instead, the movie focuses on the emotional impact of the war on the innocent civilians and soldiers outside of the battlefield. The chemistry between Alyosha and Shura is amazing. The simplicity of the plot is brilliant and allows exposure of real human interaction. The movie focused on one soldier rather than having a grand scale of characters and action. This way, we can take this one person as an example of the millions of lives similar to Aloysha's that were lost in the war. The subtlety and simplicity of this film is what makes it so great. I love it and it's a masterpiece. I rewatch it over and over again. Everyone should see it.