Byelorussia,1942: exhausted villagers accompany partisan fighters on a trek through deep snowin retreat from Nazi invaders. It is a frozen hell in which each figure seemscast into his own separate universe, and such is the goal of the special Germanforces assigned to divide and conquer the partisan resistance. In this settingLarissa Shepitko develops a psychological drama centering around three men: aRussian collaborator, a partisan who attempts to capitulate, and another whomakes his own death a profound moral defeat for the Germans. The Ascent goesbeyond a religious allegory of martyrdom; it is a work of art that speaks tomoral questions that were very much alive and unresolved in Soviet society in the1970s. It is a haunting film, the last by this very talented Ukrainian directorwho was killed in an auto accident in 1977.