Synopsis:
Two Soviet partisans leave their starving band to get supplies from a nearby farm. The Germans have reached the farm first, so the pair must go on a journey deep into occupied territory, a voyage that will also take them deep into their souls.

The.Ascent.1977.1080p.BluRay.FLAC1.0.x264-PTer.mkv

General
Container: Matroska
Runtime: 1 h 49 min
Size: 15.6 GiB
Video
Codec: x264
Resolution: 1480x1080 
Aspect ratio: 1.370
Frame rate: 23.976 fps
Bit rate: 20.1 Mb/s
BPP: 0.525
Audio
#1: Russian 1.0ch FLAC @ 272 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/3DE0AECDBB42B44/The.Ascent.1977.1080p.BluRay.FLAC1.0.x264-PTer.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Larisa Shepitko – Voskhozhdenie AKA The Ascent (1977) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
It was a dark and stormy night…. at the turn of the century and Bielarecki (Boris Plotnikov), a young ethnographer seeks shelter at Marsh Firs, a gloomy baronial manor set amidst Byelorussian marshes, while he conducts research into the myths and legends of the region. He discovers from the castle’s young and tragic owner, Nadzieja Jankowska (Yelena Dimotrova), that the place is haunted by two ghosts-the Little Man of Marsh Firs and the Lady in Blue-and that her family line was accursed centuries ago when ancestor Roman Jankowska denied the hand of his daughter to King Stach, whose ghost now rides with those of thirteen horsemen to drag Jankowska offspring and their servants to death in the surrounding marshes…

The director, Valery Rubinchik, claims in a supplementary interview that he made THE SAVAGE HUNT OF KING STACH not with the intention of making a horror film, but a film whose inherent fears and mysteries made it truer to real life. Regardless of his intentions, he made a real gooseflesh-raiser, though it more properly belongs to the realm of fantasy rather than horror. It’s one of those movies that force its reviewers to recount a long list of haunting images, so I recommend you try to see them for yourself.

Soviet Union’s third horror film after Bears Wedding (1926) and Viy (1967) based on a story by V. Korotkevich.

7.12GB | 2h 06m | 1920×1080 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/50FF8AE1051BB7E/Dikaya_okhota_korolya_Stakha_(1979).mkv
https://nitro.download/view/53DA1E0C19FD828/Dikaya_okhota_korolya_Stakha_(1979)_-_eng_02.srt
or
https://fikper.com/okvaOyAH95/Dikaya_okhota_korolya_Stakha_(1979).mkv.html
https://fikper.com/GgGkCrz6Ag/Dikaya_okhota_korolya_Stakha_(1979)_-_eng_02.srt.html

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Valeri Rubinchik – Dikaya okhota korolya Stakha AKA The Savage Hunt of King Stakh (1980) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
It was a dark and stormy night…. at the turn of the century and Bielarecki (Boris Plotnikov), a young ethnographer seeks shelter at Marsh Firs, a gloomy baronial manor set amidst Byelorussian marshes, while he conducts research into the myths and legends of the region. He discovers from the castle’s young and tragic owner, Nadzieja Jankowska (Yelena Dimotrova), that the place is haunted by two ghosts-the Little Man of Marsh Firs and the Lady in Blue-and that her family line was accursed centuries ago when ancestor Roman Jankowska denied the hand of his daughter to King Stach, whose ghost now rides with those of thirteen horsemen to drag Jankowska offspring and their servants to death in the surrounding marshes…

The director, Valery Rubinchik, claims in a supplementary interview that he made THE SAVAGE HUNT OF KING STACH not with the intention of making a horror film, but a film whose inherent fears and mysteries made it truer to real life. Regardless of his intentions, he made a real gooseflesh-raiser, though it more properly belongs to the realm of fantasy rather than horror. It’s one of those movies that force its reviewers to recount a long list of haunting images, so I recommend you try to see them for yourself.

Soviet Union’s third horror film after Bears Wedding (1926) and Viy (1967) based on a story by V. Korotkevich.

1.69GB | 1h 49m | 747×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/4C4262B6C455FD3/The.Savage.Hunt.of.King.Stakh.1980.DVDRIP.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian

The post Valeri Rubinchik – Dikaya okhota korolya Stakha AKA The Savage Hunt of King Stakh (1980) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Two Soviet partisans on a mission to gather food contend with the winter cold, the occupying Germans, and their own psyches.

Letterboxd review by Lara Pop ★★★★½:
It rarely gets bleaker than The Ascent. Larisa Shepitko’s tale of perseverance in the face of imminent death surprised me on several counts. For the first half of the movie, I couldn’t figure out the significance of the title. If anything, Shepitko presents its exact opposite. The barren, snow-covered landscape, where death lurks in every grinding step man takes, devours the movie in its all-consuming white death. The shaky camera movement enhances every sound made in the white silence as the camera zooms in on man’s face and outlines the thin crust of ice scratching his cheek with its cold tendrils, stretching, reaching, with one goal in mind: to get to the innermost layer: the spirit; and to break it. It is a tableau of a frostbitten feast, an icy infusion of a deathly descent, straight into the vein. I couldn’t figure out why I was watching a film named its exact opposite.

In the second half, however, the movie takes an unexpected turn and clears the white fog surrounding its title. Director Shepitko’s focus does not stray from depicting the mental descent of the two main characters but is supplemented by the central shift to the symbolic-spiritual connotation their actions and behavior convey. Shepitko contrasts the self-sacrificing, altruistic mindset of Sotnikov with the survivalist worldview of Rybak, and paints an alternative rendition of the biblical Jesus-Judas tale, portraying Judas’s betrayal before Christ’s crucifixion and his torn consciousness afterwards.

The ending cuts like a double-edged sword. Throughout the film, Rybak/Judas is trying to escape death; in the last frames, however, death beckons him with the promise of salvation his soul so desperately yearns for. But here, unlike in the Bible, he is not able to commit suicide upon learning about Christ’s crucifixion but stays trapped in the cage of his own guilty conscience. His last agony-filled scream in the movie reinforces his pain as the camera once again cuts to the white silence descending on the landscape like a shroud upon man’s corrupted soul.

The descent of Judas’s spirit is counterpoised by the climax: the execution scene which symbolizes Christ’s ascension into heaven. Whereas Judas was not able to, Christ finds salvation in death and sees in the blinding whiteness not the foul glow of man’s soul but the brilliance of heaven.

All the same, never for a moment be fooled by the misleading hopefulness of The Ascent. Here, hope is but a vehicle for seeing the momentary beacon of light, the precarious bridge which allows passage into heaven. But, as we all know, the bridge is severed ever so easily and man remains but a mere traveller trying to find his way in the all-engulfing whiteness.

3.06GB | 1h 49m | 790×576 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/550384948EF179D/Voskhozhdeniye.AKA.The.Ascent.1977.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264.mkv
or
https://tezfiles.com/file/6e492be276e13/Voskhozhdeniye.AKA.The.Ascent.1977.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264.mp4

Language:Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Larisa Shepitko – Voskhozhdeniye AKA The Ascent (1977) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Professor Preobrazhensky and his colleague place some human parts into a dog named Sharik. Soon the dog transforms into a human.

Quote:
This movie (and yes, it’s a movie – it was shot as a two-parter, but the two parts together come down to slightly more than 2 hours) is one of the unsung masterpieces of world cinema. A very well-mannered, and yet at the same time absolutely savage denunciation of the Soviet regime and the type of person who flourished under it, the film is a faithful adaptation of the long-banned eponymous book by Mikhail Bulgakov. The sets are flawless, and the director made the brilliant decision to film in monochrome sepia, adding a feel of authenticity where a late-80s washed-out color incarnation would have all but ruined the film. I won’t say much about the plot, which deserves to be discovered by the viewer himself, but the performances are true Oscar material; special mentions go out to E. Evstigneev, who plays the old professor with such presence, gravitas and kind wisdom that with barely a word or a gesture, he ends up stealing every scene he’s in. The second, of course, is Creature/Sharikov, who, played to horrifying perfection by V. Tolokonnikov, is by far more frightening a character than Hannibal Lecter, because not only does he exist in real life – entire countries have been ran by men like him throughout history, with all that ensues.

While it’s a socio political allegory, it is worth mentioning that the movie is also brimming with humor, albeit dark – there are many outright comedies which haven’t made me laugh as much as this film. What’s more, when laughing at this movie, the feeling is not only one of hilarity but of understanding and agreement, which is always a plus.

There is hardly a complaint I have with this movie – the only slight flaw is the tone of intellectual/bourgeois snobbery I caught at times from the “enlightened” characters. But that’s a minor quibble.

2.21GB | 02:15:00 | 760×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/19D466F558C2756/Heart_of_a_Dog_Part_1.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/8C294CC41127949/Heart_of_a_Dog_Part_2.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Vladimir Bortko – Sobache serdtse AKA Heart of a Dog (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.