The Ascent (1977)

I unfortunately shouldn’t have watched this so soon after Come and See (directed by the husband of Larisa Shepitko, this film’s director). The setting and themes being so similar probably lessened the impact for me here. The story here is more focused, settling on one day’s experiences of two partisans who are sent to search for food and find themselves directly interacting with Germans. The events here are just as harrowing; the feelings of hunger, cold, and the deep snow palpable. War changes everyone; the two men discover that many of those changes come from the choices one is forced to make.