Twenty Days Without War (1977)

During the 20-day leave, war correspondent Lopatin travels by train to the distant city of Tashkent. It's very far from the front but the war seems to be present in people's minds even there.

Director:

Aleksey German

Writers:

Konstantin Simonov (screenplay), Konstantin Simonov (story)

Stars:

Yuriy Nikulin, Lyudmila Gurchenko, Aleksey Petrenko

Cast

Credited cast:
Yuriy Nikulin	...	Major Lopatin
Lyudmila Gurchenko	...	Nina
Aleksey Petrenko	...	Pilot
Angelina Stepanova	...	Theatre Artistic Director (as A. Stepanova)
Yekaterina Vasilyeva	...	Roubtsova
Nikolay Grinko
Lyusyena Ovchinnikova
Mikhail Kononov	...	Roubtsov
Liya Akhedzhakova
Rashid Sadykov	...	Central Committee Secretary (as R. Sadykov)
Konstantin Simonov	...	Narrator (voice)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nikolay Mikheev	...	Lieutenant colonel
Vladimir Mishanin	...	Provodnik

Storyline

War correspondent Lopatin takes a 20-day-leave from his hard work at the front in 1942. He travels to faraway Tashkent to meet the family of the killed soldier and visit the film set of the screen adaptation of his war-time stories. Lopatin also manages to walk the streets of Tashkent, take part in a factory workers' meeting and have a short-lived love affair. Although with no bombings and fighting, the city dwellers breathe the atmosphere of the ongoing war.

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Plot Keywords:

black and white film | black and white | 1940s | soviet union | ussr | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | War

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Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

25 April 1977 (Soviet Union)

Also Known As:

Twenty Days Without War

Filming Locations:

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lenfilm Studio

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The pilot's monologue was conceived and filmed as one continuous shot. Yet the director had to make one cut in the place where Aleksey Petrenko uncontrollably used foul language.

User Reviews

possibly one of the best WWII-themed films I've ever seen

"Twenty Days without War" is one of the very few "cinema-verite" style films made on the topic of World War II, specifically the Soviet home front. Based on the life of famous war correspondent and poet Konstantin Simonov (who himself narrates off-screen at the opening and closing sequences), this remarkable film follows the venerable Yuri Nikulin, playing a Simonov-like character who is granted a 20-day leave to visit the Uzbek city of Tashkent (one of the major evacuation centers during the war, where the Soviet cinema studios were moved). Part of his journey's purpose is to advise the filming of a propagandistic screen version of one of his stories. Many of the sequences here are shot almost documentary-style, with such unpretentiousness and candor, as if the real war participants and victims were actually interviewed on screen. And yet, lyrical and even poetic moments are also glimpsed, albeit in amazingly unforced, unsentimental fashion. Most of the actors, including Nikulin himself, lived through or fought in the war, and their intention, as well as the director's must have been to deliver a hitherto-unknown, "you are there" immediacy to the audience. They splendidly succeed, as the film, like no other of its kind, brings to life the reminiscences of my grandparents, who experienced both the fighting and the evacuation. In fact, it remains my grandmother's all-time favorite war film because of the honesty of its emotions and the truthful spirit of the period it conveys.