The Ascent 1977

During the Great Patriotic War, two Soviet partisans, Sotnikov [Boris Plotnikov] and Rybak [Vladimir Gostyukhin], travel to a Belarusian village in search of food. After taking a farm animal from the collaborationist headman, they push on toward their unit, but a German patrol spots them. A prolonged, snow-swept gunfight follows, and although they manage to escape, Sotnikov is wounded in the leg. Rybak carries him to the nearest shelter, the home of Demchikha [Lyudmila Polyakova], a mother of three, where a sobbing Demchikha joins their fragile attempt to survive. The group is soon captured and brought to the German headquarters.

There, Sotnikov is interrogated first by Portnov [Anatoliy Solonitsyn], a local collaborator who has become the head of the Belarusian Auxiliary Police and remains loyal to the Germans. When Sotnikov refuses to speak, he is brutally tortured by the collaborationist police, yet offers no information. Rybak, trying to buy time to live and perhaps escape later, reveals as much as he believes the police already know. Portnov then offers the dubious prospect of a job as a policeman to Rybak, setting up a grim choice between collaboration and resistance.

The two men, along with Demchikha, the headman who is now suspected of aiding the partisans, and Basya, a young Jewish girl hidden by a village member, are confined together in the same cellar for the night. Sotnikov agrees to talk with Portnov the next day and shoulder all the responsibility, hoping to shield the others from punishment.

The following morning, they are led out again. Sotnikov insists on speaking to Portnov, only to be brushed off after an impassioned plea. Desperate, Rybak begs to join the police, and Portnov allows it. Demchikha attempts to reveal Basya’s hiding place, but the truth remains unspoken. Sotnikov and the others are then led away and hanged.

As Rybak returns to the camp with his new comrades, he is harshly vilified by the villagers. Plagued by guilt and the fear of his own cowardice, he tries to hang himself in the outhouse with a belt, but the attempt fails. A fellow policeman eventually calls to him, and when the commander summons him, Rybak steps out. He gazes at the open door, and a strange mix of laughter and tears overtakes him.