The Ascent
Directed by Larisa Shepitko • 1977 • Soviet Union
Starring Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergei Yakovlev
The crowning triumph of a career cut tragically short, the final film from Larisa Shepitko won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and went on to be hailed as one of the finest works of late Soviet cinema. In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard-swept landscape of Nazi-occupied Belorussia. When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film’s earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory. With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch-black despair, THE ASCENT finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war.
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The Ascent
Directed by Larisa Shepitko • 1977 • Soviet Union
Starring Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergei YakovlevThe crowning triumph of a career cut tragically short, the final film from Larisa Shepitko won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and went on to be hailed as one of the ...
Extras
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Introducing Larisa Shepitko
Scholar Barbora Bartunkova discusses Larisa Shepitko’s singular vision and fearless, exploratory approach to filmmaking.
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THE ASCENT Select-Scene Commentary
In this program, created in 2020, film scholar Daniel Bird compares several scenes from THE ASCENT with their counterparts in Vasil Bykov’s 1970 novella “Sotnikov,” which inspired Larisa Shepitko’s film, and examines the way the film makes use of Alfred Schnittke’s score.
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More than Love
This 2012 program exploring the relationship between filmmakers Larisa Shepitko and Elem Klimov was broadcast on the Russian television channel Kultura and features interviews with Klimov’s brother, the writer German Klimov, and screenwriter Natalya Ryazantseva.
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Talks with Larisa
This 1999 program, broadcast on the Russian television channel Kultura, features an introduction by filmmaker Elem Klimov and film critic Irina Rubanova to an interview with director Larisa Shepitko that was recorded just after the 1978 Berlin International Film Festival.
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Larisa
Directed by Elem Klimov • 1980 • Soviet Union
Starring Larisa Shepitko, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Elem KlimovDirector Larisa Shepitko’s husband, Elem Klimov, made this short documentary a year after the death of his wife in 1979. Using footage from her films, including the last image she ever record...
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The Homeland of Electricity
An adaptation of a story by Andrei Platonov, this short film by Larisa Shepitko was created as part of a 1967 omnibus film entitled BEGINNING OF AN UNKNOWN ERA, commissioned to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. Soviet authorities deemed the depiction of the early Bolshevik...
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Lyudmila Polyakova on THE ASCENT
In the following interview, recorded in Moscow in October 2020, actor Lyudmila Polyakova discusses the production of THE ASCENT and director Larisa Shepitko’s impact on her career.
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Anton Klimov on THE ASCENT
In this introduction, recorded in September 2020, journalist Anton Klimov talks about the singular vision of his mother, director Larisa Shepitko, for THE ASCENT, and the devotion to her work of his father, filmmaker Elem Klimov.
