Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

leplatypus This is surely not my opinion but the party line as told in the movie when Essenin's poem is read ! This benign event is the spark to dramatic ones : arrest of a helpful single father as a people enemy and the consecutive suicide of the daughter ! As it's happens with students who seeks their identity in a rigid school system, softened by an inspired newcomer, well you meet again all the themes of Dead Poets society ! So, as in space, Soviets were there first ! Maybe the great difference here is that the women who have the spotlight as friends in school, as director, as mothers...This critical movie set before the great patriotic war is from 1987 and i suppose that without Perestroika, it could never had been released ! Anyway, it's good to rejoice with sweet and cute Natalia : in a way, she reminds me a bit of Noomi Rapace, except that she is more lively and friendly. This plunge into Russian films is particularly interesting as it's always new experiences with unseen places, people… It's great to see that outside west, there is also quality and moving works as we can believe there is nothing else.. If your medias don't recommend it, i urge you to find it and you will be filled with smiles, cries and reflections

AncaH I never expected to be so impressed by this picture after reading the description. I often avoid to read reviews before watching the film in order to have my own uninfluenced opinions. This movie is like a thorn which you just stepped in. It's about the freedom, of having questions, wanting to find the truth and the repercussions of these in a Stalinist regime. The alternation of black and whit with the colored picture show exactly what I was saying: the difference between liberty, happiness shreds and marginal thinking, but also the difference between a great intellect and a small-minded one. The music in the film is also great, achieving a perfect conjunction with the images and the surroundings, the society. It's also a perfect explanation of the presumption of innocence and how society arrives to judge in advance, disregarding the collateral damage.

mvp9 its a harsh view of the life lead in stalin's russia. The title indicates that a war was on even before Hitler invaded (it takes place in '40 before russia was invaded). 1984 in its true, real, form where people are so penetrated by the dogma around them, they are virtually willing to denounce their children and words like truth and justice are unknown. (one of the girls asks her mother, "what is istina?" which means 'higher truth') the suffering befalling the kids in the movie is tragic and heartfelt. Its excellently done and the acting is superb (in the russian style). There is a reason why it is rated higher than godfather.

snowball-15 That is a wonderful movie that breaks your heart. The story takes us in the last autumn before Germany invaded USSR. A group of high school kids with their eternal business of first love, classes, leaders and dreamers is suddenly thrown out of peaceful existence. A father of the most likable girl is taken by KGB and she has to renounce him publicly. She can not betray him and so she invites all her true friends (those who did not desert her for being a daughter of the enemy of the state) for a picnic. She does not say so, but t is a farewell. After that she takes an overdose of sleeping pills. In an unbelievable twist of fate (KGB almost never released its victims) her father is released in few days. The story runs about a week, but boy, how fast this kids had to grow up. It is like the innocence of their existence was lost. One day they lived in the most perfect country, where justice and equality ruled, or so they were brought up to believe. And next they new that it all were lies and innocent people were destroyed by regime without mercy. There was also problem of loyalty. Who do you stay loyal to, your friend or your country? The movie ends with few laconic lines of information what happened to the rest of the class during the war. Somebody was burned in a tank, somebody was hanged for participation in resistance, somebody became an ace pilot. It is a great movie, see it if you have an opportunity. May be you would learn something you did not know about people from the USSR and about this period of history.