Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Ballad of a Soldier is about Aloysha, a young private in the Soviet army that is granted some time to go visit with his mother. The movie follows the people that he meets on his journey home, even falling in love on the way. The whole time you are rooting for Aloysha to make it in time to see his mother before his time runs out—making you emotional invested in his journey and his new relationship with the girl he meets along the way. Additionally, the movie depicts the hardships of war without actually showing any attacks. And instead of taking a soldier and trying to portray him as a hero, Aloysha is portrayed as a human being with flaws and fears. Because of this, I found this movie very real and enjoyable. The main character was lovable and I found myself invested in his story.

The Ballad of a soldier is a Russian movie that revolves around World War 2 and is about a young couple who are madly in love. The main character named Vladimir Ivashov is very home sick and yearns for his wife. The soldier is very good and commits numerous acts that give him heroic status instead of having a medal he asks for 6 days to help his mother and fix his roof. On a train towards his mother he falls in love with a girl named Shura. On his way home he commits acts of kindness. Some of those include carrying a suitcase for a wounded soldier and he helps push out a jeep that is stuck in the mud. Wen the end of the movie happens Shura confesses that there is no fiancé only an aunt. The soldiers train is blown up and then Alyosha rafts across the river and then to a rural village. The soldier only gets to see his mother for a few seconds. We see his journey home and he eventually dies along with being remembered as a Russian soldier at the end of the movie.

touching, power, subtle, full of force and grace. it is difficult to describe it. because small and ordinary pieces makes a great story about love, war, mother portrait and youth in dark time. each aspect is unique. and great virtue is perfect measure. a film like flower after Stalin death, it is, in same measure, a lesson out of age. about cinema art, about science of Soviet directors to expose the essence but, more that, it is a beautiful lesson about meetings as seeds.all makes easy. but like old ballads, it is a tale about hero and his travel, fights and victories, Alexey Skvortsov may be Ilia Muromets. or another character from legend. his war is pledge for sensitive roots of existence. adventures who makes him better. it is not a manifesto or fresco. can be a letter. or only a kind of Oddysey in which Itaka is more than a place.

Grigori Chukhray's film "Ballad of a Soldier", shot in 1959 in the Soviet Union, somehow miraculously happened against all odds. The board which had to decide whether the film should be made called its script shallow and a thing about a boy, a girl and a leaking roof that isn't worth to be made in the Soviet Union. Chukhray, who referred to it as the film of his lifetime, also insisted on changing the leads to unknown actors, there was an accident on the first day of shooting, then the director himself turned ill when they restarted, finally a mutiny cost him half of the crew - and once the film was finished it was recommended not to show it in larger cities of the Soviet Union. It won in Cannes, though.Well, "Ballad of a Soldier" was worth all the trouble. It's not about the Soviet Union, the Nazis, battle scenes, violence or death. It's about a young WW II soldier lucky enough to have a heroic moment and get permission to return home for a few days. You might call him the unknown soldier. In this road movie of the different kind you learn a lot about life far away from the front lines, it's about people and their varying struggles during the times of war. The voyage to what seems to be the other end of the world results in one of the most compassionate, humanistic, even poetically beautiful war-related movies. Plus the restored print is as perfect as it can be, making this one a shining gem in every movie-lover's collection.Additional Note: If you've acquired a taste for emotional war drama between the front and back home, there's of course that other Soviet key film you shouldn't miss either. Mikhail Kalatozov's "The Cranes are Flying" focuses on a couple torn apart by the woes of war, features powerful imagery on an emotional roller coaster ride and is as universally tangible as Chukhray's film.