The Ascent (1977) on Netflix
World War II partisans Sotnikov and Rybak cross a Belarusian winter to find food. A German patrol spots them and shoots Sotnikov in the leg. Rybak carries him to Demchikha's house.
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Plot summary
Soviet partisans Sotnikov and Rybak leave their unit in a Belarusian winter to find food, taking a farm animal from a village headman who serves the occupiers. A German patrol spots them as they head back, and in the gunfight that follows Sotnikov is wounded in the leg. Rybak carries him to the home of Demchikha, a mother of three children, where the two are discovered and taken prisoner along with her. At German headquarters, the collaborator Portnov questions Sotnikov, who refuses to answer despite the beatings. Rybak, who wants to live, tells the police nothing more than he believes they already know.
Cast
- Aleksandr Zvenigorskiyas German officer
- Anatoli Chebotaryovas German officer with glasses
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Ascent (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Shepitko wanted unknown or little-known actors whose past roles would not overshadow their characters, so she rejected Andrey Myagkov, who wanted to act in the picture, and Nikolai Gubenko, and also Vladimir Vysotsky, who yearned to play Rybakov.
- Regulators believed Shepitko had shot a "religious parable with a mystical tinge" instead of a partisan story, and the film was nearly banned and likely to be shelved until her husband, director Elem Klimov, took a desperate step.
- The first scenes were shot in the middle of fields, forests and ravines in weather forty degrees below zero, a cold Boris Plotnikov said Vasil Bykaŭ's story had demanded with its frost and virginal snow.
- For the scenes of the partisans fleeing through the snow, director Larisa Shepitko ran alongside the actors so she would share their exhaustion; the shoot was completed a month ahead of schedule.
- Shepitko screened 20 candidates for Rybak and chose the unknown Vladimir Gostyukhin, who had spent six years working in the Soviet Army theater as a furniture and prop maker and once replaced a sick actor in the play Unknown Soldier.
- The officials met Schnittke's score with resistance and ordered that the allusions to biblical texts be removed from the film.
SPOILER
In the original story Rybak cannot hang himself because he forgot to ask for the belt the policemen had taken from him; the authors "returned" the belt for the film but kept the hanging impossible, implying that even death refuses a traitor.
