Grigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier marks a transition (at least in the scope of this course) from the ideologically heavy Socialist realist films under Stalin to something more individualist. The focus of this film is simply Alyosha. This is not to say that Alyosha is not representative of anything, but we'll get to that in a moment. Alyosha's journey home becomes a mechanism for discovering the character, his qualities and naivete. Alyosha is simple and honest, and ultimately just desires to not be where he is, namely the war. Ballad is so personal and focused on Alyosha that it would be difficult to identify the trademark propagandist elements found in the Socialist realist. So in this sense this film is more about the actual reality rather than the Socialist reality, and to that end it is wonderful. We love Alyosha, we identify with his honesty and strength in the midst of WWII. But this film is really not pure entertainment as a lack of propaganda would imply. The message lies with the strength of the human spirit. Through Alyosha we can see that the Soviet Union would have to be driven by its people instead of its ideologies, that its would be the strength of character that would support the ideas and not the other way around. Through Alyosha's exploits, helping the wounded soldier, delivering (and then un-delivering) the soap, his devotion and love of Shura, we can understand the true aims of the Russian people.
Overall, this film encapsulates the tragedies of war on a world scale. Alyosha's struggle is indicative of all soldiers in war, not just Russian soldiers. He only wants to be home with his family, and then he becomes a victim of his own good nature, suggesting that suffering belongs to people like Alyosha or even Shura who are ultimately products of a indiscriminate war torn society, uncaring of even good people.
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I definitely agree that this movie exemplifies the human spirit, for whatever that is. Russia is driven by it people for they are the heart of the body of Russia.
ReplyDeleteYou're definitely right that this film is universally applicable--so it's no surprise that it's achieved and maintained great popularity throughout all of the world. But at the same time I don't think it could have achieved this without presenting Alyosha as such a Russian young man. Similarly, Shura is *such* a Russian girl. I'm not sure their formal "let's introduce ourselves" scene, nor the little picnic they both begin to set up could have been presented in the same way had this been, say, a film about an American soldier.
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