The Ascent
Is it weird that, in watching Larisa Shepitko’s final film, I thought of Sam Mendes’s “1917?” The latter is certainly more cinematically visceral, but both involve two soldiers sent on a lonely mission for the sake of their comrades. That’s about where the similarities stop, but as we watch Sotnikov and Rybak’s journey unfold, there’s a single-minded determination to their journey that feels at one with what we see in Mendes’s film. If that parallel can get people to check out “The Ascent,” it’ll be worth mentioning.
“The Ascent” came out during the Cold War, so while acclaimed, it was probably not something Americans in particular wanted to see- after all, we have a tendency to shun works that don’t fit our own biases towards others. I very much want to seek out Shepitko’s other work moving forward, because like Tarkovsky, she gives us a humane look at the Russian people that makes us empathize with them, and their struggles to do what’s right. Based on a novel by Vasiliy Bykov, “The Ascent” is here to remind us that we weren’t the only ones fighting the Russians during World War II, and sometimes, sacrifices were required to try help out fellow countrymen.
I think because of how much “The Empire Strikes Back,” and the Hoth scenes at the beginning, were such a fundamental part of my early moviewatching, seeing how filmmakers use snow in films has always been interesting to me. I haven’t lived in significant snow-filled areas for years, but when we have gotten it, it always gives off an aura of unforgiving claustrophobia, like nature is walling you in. When we first see the landscape in “The Ascent,” and as Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) leave their unit, and risk capture in German-occupied areas of Russia, we have an anxiety about them, not just because they might get shot, but because the elements could take them, as well. They are looking for supplies for their hungry unit, but it could be that they need those for themselves before they get back.
“The Ascent” looks at the idea of collaboration with an occupying force as intensely as any film has probably approached the subject. On the one hand, you don’t want to sell out your countrymen and women at a time of war, but with a literal gun to your head, and the heads of your friends and family, how do you maintain that loyalty if it means the death of your loved ones? When the two soldiers are captured, and- with the woman who was hiding them- taken to a Nazi interrogator (Anatoliy Solonitsyn), that choice becomes an untenable one. For the soldiers, they try and work through a scenario where maybe, if they manage to tell them things they already know, they will survive. At what moral cost, however? Personally, that choice sounds like a painful one.
Shepitko is well-versed with individual drama (such as the scenes between the two and Solonitsyn), tense action scenes, and bringing finite focus to the emotions of people through looks and faces. This is a haunting and powerful film with an ending looking at the sad reality of trying to do the right thing, trying to survive, and realizing- too late- that sometimes, that means sacrificing yourself for others. The final moments in this film are as potent a look at agony and betraying ones self as we’ve seen in film. “The Ascent” maybe, but the way one character descends into the moral abyss of war, with its horrifying choices, is profound and unforgettable.
