BALLAD OF A SOLDIER Movie Review

Ballada ο Soldate

Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nominee for best original screenplay. Ballad of a Soldier was the breakthrough film for the Soviet film industry following World War II. It tells the story of a young Russian soldier named Alësha who's given a few days’ leave as a reward for taking out a couple of German tanks, and on his journey home meets a number of people who have been affected by the war in various and sometimes surprising ways. A young legless veteran is afraid to go home to his wife, and Alësha arranges their reunion; when Alësha visits the wife of a fellow soldier to bring her a gift from her husband, he's shocked and embarrassed to find her with another man; without warning, Alësha meets a young girl with whom he shares a few hours, only to be parted from her quickly, and forever. Finally, the moments he actually gets to spend with his mother are far too short, but all the more precious as a result of the experiences of his brief but eventful journey. Ballad of a Soldier, while certainly a tender, intelligent, and affecting film, may have been overpraised a bit on its initial release, partly because its appearance in the USSR in 1960 was so unexpected, and partly because its anti-war message was—and still is—hungered for so universally.

NEXT STOP … Commissar, the Ascent, Paisan

1960 88m/B RU Vladimir Ivashov, Shanna Prokhorenko, Antonina Maximova, Nikolai Kryuchkov; D: Grigori Chukrai; W: Grigori Chukrai, Valentin Yezhov; C: Sergei Mukhin; M: Mikhail Ziv. British Academy Awards ‘61: Best Film; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘61: Best Story & Screenplay. VHS NYF, HHT, IHF