The Ascent

The Ascent (Восхождение, 1977) is a Soviet war drama directed by Larisa Shepitko — watch online on iFILM and you'll see why it took the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival that year. Shot entirely in stark black and white among the frozen landscapes of Belarus by cinematographer Vladimir Chukhnov, the film adapts Vasil Bykov's novella Sotnikov into something closer to a moral parable than a war picture.

Two partisans are sent from a forest hideout to find food for their group — women and children included. Sotnikov, played by Boris Plotnikov, is already sick and barely holding together. His partner Rybak, played by Vladimir Gostyukhin, is physically strong and has every instinct pointed at survival. The Germans capture them both. What follows is a series of interrogations — quiet, methodical, terrible — in which each man's character gets stripped to its core. Anatoli Solonitsyn appears as the investigator.

Shepitko never raises her voice. There are no speeches. The film simply watches two people face the same pressure and move in opposite directions — one small compromise at a time on one side, one refusal at a time on the other. It's one of the coldest and most honest films ever made about what war actually does to people. Stream The Ascent (1977) online on iFILM.