As a reward for destroying two German tanks, a 19 year old soldier (Vladimir Ivashov) is given six days leave to visit his mother. On his journey to his small village, he sees the chaos of war's effects as well as falling in love with a girl (Zhanna Prokhorenko) he meets on a train. This aptly titled film is one of the most lyrical movies I've ever seen. The director Grigori Chukhrai (who, amazingly, only directed nine films in a 45 year career) instills heart and poignancy as well as some humor into his simple tale. Simple it may be but it packs an emotional wallop. The two young leads, both in their film debuts, are fresh and natural. Prokhorenko is as lovely as any Hollywood starlet and the open faced Ivashov is superb. It would be unfair to Chukhrai's film to merely label it a war film since the emphasis is not on war but on the tragedy that war inflicts on its citizens trying to survive and live their lives when the normalcy of their everyday lives has been forever altered. A wonderful, subtle score by Mikhail Ziv and the excellent black and white lesning by Vladimir Nikolayev and Era Savelyeva.
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