If one has seen The Ascent (Voshoždenije, 1977), Larisa Shepitko’s clear-as-ice vision of the Calvary for victims of war, can Loznitsa’s In the Fog be seen as its companion piece. The similarities are no coincidence: Both stories have originated from the pen of Belarusian author Vasil Bykaǔ (1924–2003). The location and time are the same, Belarus in 1942. German occupiers enforce a brutal reign, partisans are hiding in the woods, and the civilians helping them are in mortal danger. In unbearable circumstances, the will of many is broken down into apathy, but in these two stories, the protagonist finds their moral backbone and does what a man at their noblest can.
Loznitsa’s film exudes desperation and danger, outright reeks of sweat and mud, its soundscape pulling the viewer into the shady forest. Sushenya, a man captured and then released by the Germans, would rather have been hanged. Now, he is suspected of being a collaborator, and the partisans are coming for him. The slowly unfurling structure of the film gradually reveals more about the characters and events, calmly laying out the circumstances and then the fact that no matter how you live, death awaits us all in the end. Loznitsa deals with the heavy subject matter with the same reverence as in 1960s Soviet Cinema, a tribute to his passionate predecessors.
Mia Öhman