The film is not as trashy as other Lithuanian sovietic depression aka partizan films. This one was pretty decent, I really liked the calm pace and slow burning tension which were the defining characteristics of this film. Performances were great, Alvydas Anusauskas shined through everything, and, in contrast to what other cinefiles has said, I loved the performance of Marius Elijas Povilas Martynenko, his microexpressions were delivered wonderfully, in my humble opinion, his unexpressive possition fits the role perfectly and made the whole film feel like a great spectacle - yes, we are so used to Lithuanian actors bombarding us with feelings, emotions and expression in their faces, but I just felt relieved that finally we have a real human being in that sovietic world. Finally someone who I can relate to.
Now, let's talk about the things which made me cringe and feel unamused. First of all, the film essentialy was plotless, seriuously, there is no plot, just faces, dialogues, (which weren't perfect either and at times seemed to drawn out and way too silly) some wandering around, some shooting, hiding, some crying and deaths. That's it. There's nothing else you can hook on to and you just wait those two hours for something to happen. I waited waited and waited and nothing real happened.
Lithuanians like to say how Hollywood films have this hollywoodish dramatism in them. Well, I have to say that Lithaunian films have some Lithuanian-ish dramatism in them. Before I die, Imma just sing a few lines of that sad melancholic song I once heard; yeah, why not. So, a partizan sings a song and then shoots himself, whilst all of his friends are already dead. How clever. How realistic. You know what, why don't we also put some sad violin music in the background while partizans are being shot down one by one. Yeah, cool, let's do that, let's just ruin the moment. And lastly why don't we just make every person's relation to others extremely difficult so that our audience would not manage to fully understand it. A man is murdered by the soviet dogs whilst trying to escape, his wife is raped. But did soviets really do that? Well, I don't know, because I couldn't actually realise what was happening. And how, why did Unte get here? Where's the logic? Well, I don't know and I should't care about that, I should just enjoy the film, right? Wrong.
By the way, I couldn't help but notice every single time there were dirty hands or dirty fingernails or both shown on the screen. There were just too many scenes like that for me not to start thinking that maybe Sharunas Bartas has a dirty fingernail fetish.
