Good movie, but not the 'best ever' (spoilers)
The movie tried to give an almost surreal, nightmarish view of the realities of war on civilians on the Eastern Front in World War II. It does a great job of this. It is also a "one boy's story" of how the excitement and romance of war is quickly and disturbingly melted away by the grim realities of war.
It uses a great deal of symbolism and artistry in lieu of graphic images of violence or dumbed-down dialogue or narrative. For example, the 5 minutes the director spends on the children crossing the swamp to get to the refugees on the island is a dramatic device to portray the emotional sinking and drowning the boy is going through as he begins to realize what has happened to his family and his village. Also, at the end, as the boy is wandering around the dead and dying German soldiers, he reaches for bandages; but not to help any of the Germans. Rather, he uses the bandages to fix up his gun, so he can join in the fight and hurt and kill more German soldiers. Great symbolism and artistic devices.
But the climax of the movie relies a great deal on shock value. We are supposed to have a building sense of horror as the villagers are herded into the barn and eventually burned to death. And perhaps in 1985 Soviet Union, that shock was achieved. But I found it a bit lacking, to be honest. Most likely because I've seen that scene done before (the scene in the rather shallow Mel Gibson "The Patriot" comes to mind, among others), and I feel like much of the impact of that entire sequence -- and thus the entire movie -- was lost on me.
In fact, I found that to be true for nearly all of the movie. Instead of sharing the main character's sense of disbelief and horror at each new encounter, instead I found myself figuring out the plot long before it materialized. "His family is dead," I said to myself before the boy returned home. "They'll never make it back with the cow," after the boy and partisan steal a cow from collaborators. "The Germans are going to kill everyone in the village," at the beginning of the climax, etc. etc.
Blame me for seeing too many over-dramatic, Hollywood movies perhaps. I'm not saying this movie needed more special effects or anything so foolish. I was really glad, for example, that the large battle between the Germans and partisans was NOT included in the movie; just the aftermath. But for a movie to rely almost exclusively on shock value for the climax of the film left me wanting more.
Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.