Duncan
02-01-2008, 01:05 AM
The Ascent (Shepitko, 1976)
http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/9867/voskb8.jpg
Note: I guess there are spoilers here, but the film is a Christ parable, so...I figure you guys pretty much know how the Bible ends.
Sometimes, while walking through areas made most desolate by winter, I am overcome by a chill. I’ll squint, bury my face up to my nose in my jacket, and scan the white landscape. It is open, and it is frightening. The chill passes, but I am grateful for the not-quite-frozen river whose sound accompanies the crunch of my footsteps. Watching Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent gave me that same chill.
A group of villagers is exhausted and out of food after marching to avoid the Nazis in WWII Russia. It is decided that two men should walk to a nearby farmstead and return with enough food for all. So, a soldier (Rybak) and a schoolteacher (Sotnikov) head out into the Russian winter only to find that the farm has been destroyed. They continue on their search, but Sotnikov is shot in the leg during an encounter with the Germans. Rybak proves valiant, however, and drags Sotnikov through the snow. Whiteness envelops them, and the landscape adopts the eerie quality of a bright void. I didn’t know voids could be bright. Mostly I think of them as dark.
Rybak’s efforts eventually prove futile, and the pair is captured. They are taken to a Nazi camp where they are interrogated by the inimitable Anatoli Solonitsyn. What follows is a sort of morality play and Christ parable. Sotnikov, the Christ figure, never finds the food for those villagers. No water into wine. No fish and bread for the hungry. In fact, we never see the villagers again. They may have starved to death, or have been consumed by the carnivorous war in some other way. Maybe they just faded into that bright void. Maybe they lived happily. I don’t know.
Shepitko strikes me as a director who works best outside. She can take advantage of long takes combined with long shots. As a very general, subjective comment, I will say that this is a cinema that appeals to me. When she goes inside, however, she loses the epic scale of the landscape and resorts to some fairly standard crosscutting. This makes the interrogation scenes more interesting for the script than for the direction. Although, I will say the sound design during one portion of Sotnikov’s interrogation is impressive. Same with the scene near the end atop the mount.
The sacrificial scene is ripe for exploitation. Sheptiko could have squeezed every last drop of milk from that melodramatic utter (ew). Instead, she decides to mute the dialogue and focus mainly on Sotnikov’s face. His features are surrounded by a visual and aural glow. You might expect the Trumpets of Paradise to have a harmonious, brassy sound, but here they turn out to be a rumbling hum. And they’re beautiful. I believe the scene may fall one small boy’s tear short of transcendent, but it’s knocking pretty hard on the Pearly Gates. Shepitko wants desperately to get inside, and to bring us along. Not many directors have the courage to set their cathartic goal so high, and I respect any work that gets this close to that goal.
Finally, we return to Earth and are confronted once again with that bright void. It turns out the void itself isn’t frightening at all. What is frightening is how vast and brilliant we could be, but what little creatures we choose to be instead.
http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/9867/voskb8.jpg
Note: I guess there are spoilers here, but the film is a Christ parable, so...I figure you guys pretty much know how the Bible ends.
Sometimes, while walking through areas made most desolate by winter, I am overcome by a chill. I’ll squint, bury my face up to my nose in my jacket, and scan the white landscape. It is open, and it is frightening. The chill passes, but I am grateful for the not-quite-frozen river whose sound accompanies the crunch of my footsteps. Watching Larisa Shepitko’s The Ascent gave me that same chill.
A group of villagers is exhausted and out of food after marching to avoid the Nazis in WWII Russia. It is decided that two men should walk to a nearby farmstead and return with enough food for all. So, a soldier (Rybak) and a schoolteacher (Sotnikov) head out into the Russian winter only to find that the farm has been destroyed. They continue on their search, but Sotnikov is shot in the leg during an encounter with the Germans. Rybak proves valiant, however, and drags Sotnikov through the snow. Whiteness envelops them, and the landscape adopts the eerie quality of a bright void. I didn’t know voids could be bright. Mostly I think of them as dark.
Rybak’s efforts eventually prove futile, and the pair is captured. They are taken to a Nazi camp where they are interrogated by the inimitable Anatoli Solonitsyn. What follows is a sort of morality play and Christ parable. Sotnikov, the Christ figure, never finds the food for those villagers. No water into wine. No fish and bread for the hungry. In fact, we never see the villagers again. They may have starved to death, or have been consumed by the carnivorous war in some other way. Maybe they just faded into that bright void. Maybe they lived happily. I don’t know.
Shepitko strikes me as a director who works best outside. She can take advantage of long takes combined with long shots. As a very general, subjective comment, I will say that this is a cinema that appeals to me. When she goes inside, however, she loses the epic scale of the landscape and resorts to some fairly standard crosscutting. This makes the interrogation scenes more interesting for the script than for the direction. Although, I will say the sound design during one portion of Sotnikov’s interrogation is impressive. Same with the scene near the end atop the mount.
The sacrificial scene is ripe for exploitation. Sheptiko could have squeezed every last drop of milk from that melodramatic utter (ew). Instead, she decides to mute the dialogue and focus mainly on Sotnikov’s face. His features are surrounded by a visual and aural glow. You might expect the Trumpets of Paradise to have a harmonious, brassy sound, but here they turn out to be a rumbling hum. And they’re beautiful. I believe the scene may fall one small boy’s tear short of transcendent, but it’s knocking pretty hard on the Pearly Gates. Shepitko wants desperately to get inside, and to bring us along. Not many directors have the courage to set their cathartic goal so high, and I respect any work that gets this close to that goal.
Finally, we return to Earth and are confronted once again with that bright void. It turns out the void itself isn’t frightening at all. What is frightening is how vast and brilliant we could be, but what little creatures we choose to be instead.