MUBI

“The Ascent” is one of the few films, along with perhaps Lean’s 1948 version of “Oliver Twist” and Bergman’s “Persona” which could be described as “perfect”. By that I mean that it is a film where there is hardly one wasted shot, where every line of dialogue, gesture, piece of music and mise-en-scene is used with maximum impact. There are better films than “The Ascent”, but hardly any others which hit their chosen marks as concisely as Shepitko’s masterpiece.

“The Ascent” is also the bleakest of all films, with a final scene of personal suffering that surpasses the grimness of the finales of “Lola Montes” and “Strozsek” combined, and one that seems to reach out to the emptiness and vulnerability in all human beings. It also has, in Anatoly Solinitsyn’s performance as the quisling interogator, perhaps the nearest cinema has ever got to portraying sheer evil in human form. It is a magnificent, tortured performance, to me one of the greatest in the history of cinema. (There was good reason that Solinitsyn was Tarkovsky’s favourite actor.)

“The Ascent” will probably be forever known as a very “Russian” film, which means it is grim. It is also the greatest film ever made by a female director, as if that distinction matters. But it is better than that. It is a film that asks questions about the human soul while retaining its own soul, and all the time dissecting us with scalpel-like ruthlessness and precision.

Brutally realistic war drama with a hint of poetics in it’s depiction of a slow march towards death. Larisa Shepitko creates a stark, snowy, unforgiving landscape as her two soldiers, at opposite ends of the existential balance, trek the Russian countryside, hungry and lost, as Nazi’s close in. Shepitko’s husband, Elim Klimov, would later make “Come and See”, arguably the most devastating war film ever made, but this is equally as accomplished and moving.

From the Larisa Shepitko: Eclipse Series 11 – The Ascent is a remarkable war film that stands with the best Russian cinema about events during WW II on their native soil. An equal to Ivan’s Childhood, Ballad Of A Soldier, and The Cranes Are Flying. That’s select company for our auteur whose production was cut short by another tragic event – her untimely death in an auto accident.

This story of life on the line when faced with eminent demise and how we choose bravery over cowardice. A very poignant portrayal of dignity on the highest order. Bleak, black and white drifts of snow blanks, skeleton trees, hunger, isolation all help create a poetic vision of life in despair. Brilliant film making serving up aching beautiful, heart retching situations. A jewel – hidden and obscure this is a true find for buffs of this sort material. Packaged with the excellent Wings made ten years prior about an isolated, retired WW II ace. Now deputy of the peoples republic and head mistress of private school, her frustrations hit wall after wall until an ultimate escapes beckons.