even if voskhozhdeniye be your favorite film it would only be possible to watch it and at most and every ten year . it just too emotionally strenuous . widely regard a shepitko finest film and the ascent be the story of partisan operate in the byelorussian forest in the dead of winter in german occupy soviet union . while assault the audience with the sheer physicality of the wartime experience and particularly the privation of cold and snow and the actual struggle for survival against both nature and the fascist and there be always a subtle and barely inferred sub text of moral judgment and the question about whether a man can be moral or immoral in one context but otherwise in another . a partisan group hide in the wood be attack by a german patrol and lose their food supply . two men and rybak and who know the area and and sotnikov and a jewish schoolteacher and be assign the task of go to a small village for food . they find the village burnt to the ground with nothing edible and nothing more than charred timber and foundation in which in one cubby hole there a child mirror hidden . the overwhelming feeling be that whoever bring the brutality of war to a land and a people become truly cursed . i thought of the war that the american and british brought to iraq and about how bring the horror of war to people be the act of a degenerate nation . the two move on to a nearby large village where they obtain and under duress and a lamb from the collaborator headman . the german arrive and the two partisan escape under fire . sotnikov be hit in his foot and hold off the german a rybak get away with the lamb . sotnikov becomes so desperate that prepare not to be take alive he remove his boot in order to put a bullet into his head . just then rybak return and drag sotnikov out of the line of fire . rybak drag sotnikov through the forest and bloody meter by meter all do in one long take . each meter be an agony and yet he still pull him through deep snow and up ridge and across depression and over black bush stump which crack a they snap under the weight of the men . there be several similarity to the cinematic vocabulary of tarkowsky here the long take document a process and the effect of use repetition and and the resulting emotional stress which build the long the shot go on . in the background and unnoticed because of the action and there hang a question do rybak commit an immoral act by go back for sotnikov . whether under the moral standard of marxist leninism or merely the common imperative of the survival of the group and wasn not his duty to get the food back to his starve band and leave sotnikov to cover his escape . to sacrifice one man in order for the group to survive . which lead to the question can a man who be immoral under one philosophical system be expect to be moral under a different moral system . the partisan come a if another curse of war to a farm house contain a woman with three small child . she be embitter by the scourge of war and barely hang on with her three child . they be barely rest when more german show up . they make their way to leave and be direct to the loft to hide . sotnikov cough give them away . when a german pop his head in to have a look and no one respond he threaten to fire across the loft and rybak nerve break and they be capture . now who have the moral responsibility here . sotnikov for cough or rybek for crack . the two partisan and the mother be truss up and take to a nearby town pass ominously under a wrought iron arch at the entrance . they find the headman and a small girl already in custody . they be interrogate by a turncoat byelorussian play by tarkowsky favorite anatoli solonitsyn . sotnikov keep his head during interrogation and torture and only ask what the interrogator prewar profession be . he doesn not answer but from his ease stand behind a desk the likely answer be choolteacher . rybak on the other hand begs for his life and even offer to join the police . the previously unnoticed character defect and make a wrong moral decision and the ambiguity ( sentimentality ) of which disguise it from judgment and now become obvious and unsettling and very ugly . the five sit in a dark cell . they be all schedule to die the next day . from here the element of a christian parable become stronger . genuine rembrandt lighting and composition be use a other old master pose of christ be represent . he decide he can save everyone if he take on the guilt for everyone . he must be keep alive until morning so he can save everyone . he ask the mother for forgiveness and the headman know what be take place doesn not feel such despair at die uselessly a he do before . morning come . the german do not care if sotnikov take on all of the sin of his companion or not . they will all be hang . they trudge up a steeply inclined street which be a virtual via dolorosa . a bench be take up to the site of execution which be the gateway to the town . five rope hang from it . the bench only stand three and so sotnikov stand on a tree stump which rybak kick out from under him . they all be hung . a rybak descend the road with the german and someone in the crowd call him a juda and an unnecessary allusion and shepitko only misstep . rybak imagines several time be shot in the back try to escape and die an honorable death and try and unsuccessfully and to hang himself in the shithouse and but leave with the german a the beaten dog he be . however if rybak be morally right to go back and save sotnikov life and be he wrong to try to save his own life .