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
Lyusena 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:

war correspondent | aerial bombardment | aerial attack | red army | soviet soldier | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | War

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Before the shots, director Aleksey German read poems to cinematographer Valeri Fedosov in order for the latter to get the right mood. This resulted in beautiful pans.

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Connections

Featured in Mira. The Daughter of Commander Uborevich (2013)

User Reviews

one of the quietest anti-war films ever made

A veteran Soviet Army major, on a three-week furlough from the 1943 winter offensive, discovers how even the false peace of a remote civilian village can be disturbed by the silent echoes of distant battle. His home in Tashkent is a long way from the smoke and gunfire of the Western Front, but during his leave Major Lopatin sees another, no less emotional war being waged there. He finds it in the bereaved cries of a new widow and in the lies he tells another, urging her to wait for a message that will never arrive; he encounters it in the comically inaccurate film being staged from his published memoirs of the Stalingrad siege; and he tries to escape it for a few, all too brief moments with an attractive seamstress and single mother, abandoned by her wayward husband. Displaying remarkable empathy for his characters and setting, director Alexei Gherman has made a quietly stunning film about an uncommon aspect of modern warfare, intimate in mood and detail despite the expansive clarity of its wide-screen black and white imagery.

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

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1