Ballad of a Soldier

During World War II, earnest young Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov (Volodya Ivashov) is rewarded with a short leave of absence for performing a heroic deed on the battlefield. Feeling homesick, he decides to visit his mother. Due to his kindhearted nature, however, Alyosha is repeatedly sidetracked by his efforts to help those he encounters, including a lovely girl named Shura (Zhanna Prokhorenko). In his tour of a country devastated by war, he struggles to keep hope alive. Ballad of a Soldier conveys a profound anti-war sentiment by ignoring the typical heroics of the battlefield to focus instead on the tragic loss of a young man’s potential and his simple desire for home. By framing the soldier’s death as a national tragedy that robs a mother of her child and a society of its future, the film emphasizes the senseless human cost of conflict over military victory.

Language: Russian with English subtitles