This extraordinaryfilm joins Larissa Shepitko's The Ascent and Elim Klimov's Come and Seein examining the bitter realities of waging the partisan struggle behindenemy lines in German occupied Russia during World War II. (In fact itprecedes these two films, having been made in 1972 and kept on the shelfuntil a 1985 release.) Based on the war novels of Yury German, directorAlexei German's father, the film is set in the winter of 1942 in afascist occupied region in Byelorussia. The partisans find themselves ina precarious position: surrounded by fascist punitive units, theneighboring villages having been burned to the ground, they face certainstarvation. Their only hope is to make off with a food car from theGerman freight train. The best man for the job is the quisling Lazarev,a defector to the fascist police force and thus a familiar face to thepolice guards along the road. The plot hinges on whether or not anofficer's trust in the reformed traitor will prove justified, or adeadly error. Alexei German builds tension on complex moralquestions-one telling scene finds a barge transporting Russian POWsreaching a bridge at the exact moment when the partisans are to blow upthe crossing, concurrent with the passing of a fascist supply train.Critic Ron Holloway writes, "What impresses is the control over styleand narrative. There's no mistaking that a talented Soviet director isat work...."