POLUMGLA

1944/45: the last winter of war. Artillery lieutenant Grigorij Anohin is keen to return to the front and fi ght the Germans. Instead he is ordered to build a navigational radar tower for Allied aircraft in northern Russia – with the assistance of German prisoners-of-war. After an endless journey, the convoy arrives at the remote village of Polumgla, whose name (“twilight”) aptly describes its state of wintry desolation. The men receive an equally frosty welcome from the local women, whose husbands are at the front or have been killed in action. But POLUMGLA shows the disintegration of established friend-and-foe patterns. The prisoners-of-war (played by German actors) make friends with the villagers, take on chores, help them out. Both sides are facing a similar situation of extreme isolation, and their will to survive joins forces with the liking they instinctively feel for each other. Even the lieutenant, who is still traumatised by German war atrocities, overcomes his hatred. Only when a commando unit is sent in by the NKWD, the forerunner of the KGB, does their harmonious co-existence come to an end. Artjom Antonov’s feature debut counts among a series of fi lms (such as POSLEDNIJ POEZD / THE LAST TRAIN by Aleksej German jr.) seeking to give a differentiated picture of the German soldiers traditionally shown as a horde of brutal friends. Because POLUMGLA subverts the customary heroic pathos of epics relating to the Soviet war effort, it roused controversy even prior to release. Objecting that the end chosen by Antonov “falsified history”, and the film had become “anti-Russian”, scriptwriter Igor Bolgarin threatened to have his name removed from the credits.