Fate of a Man (1959)

"Sokolov" (Sergey Bondarchuk) hopes that his warrior days are behind him after the civil war as he settles down with sweetheart "Irina" (Zinaida Kirienko) and starts a family. Sadly for him, the Nazis don't share his desires for a peaceable life and so he is duly conscripted into the Soviet army. Like so many of his counterparts, he waves goodbye to his family promising to return but having no real idea when or if he shall. Things definitely don't get off to a good start when he is captured by the invaders and imprisoned amidst a perilous environment of arbitrary killings regardless of whether you are a prisoner of war, a Russian citizen or a Jew. With the impetus of the war shifting, though, he manages to escape and we follow his attempts to make it back home to his family. Now this is told in retrospective so we do know what the outcome of his searching is going to be and as we near the denouement we find a character that's utterly devoid of hope - until the young lad "Vanya" (a joyous effort from Pavel Boriskin) makes an unpredictably profound impact on the older man now largely bereft of purpose. The wartime photography delivers strongly here illustrating the mayhem and chaos brought by the indiscriminate activities of their enemy and, latterly, their own forces whilst clearly demonstrating the horrors randomly inflicted on the population. Bondarchuk is also expert at portraying a character that is simple, decent and ultimately one who wants merely to be left to the joys of his family and his hard work. That's especially poignant when he is facing death at the hands of the prison camp commandant who sees the killing of his inmates as little different from sport. There's a tiny bit of religiosity in here too, which I thought added an extra human dimension to a story that could just as easily be applied to any of a million foot soldiers fighting in WWII without knowing what was going on at home. If the last scene doesn't bring a lump to your throat...