Dans la brume

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air," said the witches of MacBeth. Belarus, long occupied by the Germans during World War II, might well have been under the witches spell. Confusion is a fog that swallows soldiers, spies, special forces, partisans, police, rogue agents and civilians alike. They stab at each other in the dark, misjudging their prey and striking the heart of a friend.

Sushenya is caught by the Germans while sabotaging railroad tracks and instead of being put to death with his comrades, is inexplicably set free. Shooting him in the head would have done him a favor though, for Sushenya is now dead meat to his former pals. Minds are set in stone, traps are set, ambushes await, and Sushenya disappears into the forest and fog to meet his fate.

In the Fog is a thrilling combination of action and artistry, brain and brawn. One moment someone is discussing guilt and betrayal with their trusted comrade, and the next they get hit over the head with a brick by the same. There is light and sympathy too, but rare in such a place as Belarus under the German boot. Better to trust no one and wish for luck. A raw, deep and enthralling film. Seen at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.

it is the film of the state after the final credits. because it is not only a war film. but a film about the thin line between fundamental choices. about the answers who defines a man more than the circumstances. and this is the motif for define "In the Fog", after a long time when I saw it, a profound special film. sure, pieces from Soviet war films are present. but it is not fair to reduce to them. because it is a film about viewer. in profound sense. an "if" who not could be reduced at a story on the screen. and this does it an useful film. and opportunity to imagine the world as a delicate balance between choices.

In the Fog depicts the decisions that people are forced to make during times of conflict where they are no longer masters of their own fate, but victims of circumstances beyond their control.

Suchenya, the main protagonist, is confronted with choices that no one will ever want to make but, along with other characters in the film, is forced to make them. The story is not so much the consequences of those decisions that determine the characters' fate but the unexpected events that unfold as a result of those decisions.

This is an slow moving but thoughtful film about impossible choices some of us are forced to make that profoundly shape our futures.

The scene where Suchenya's interrogator waves to him would have to be one of the cruelest waves ever seen in a movie.

It's a real shame when a potentially engaging drama with a powerful theme gets pulverized into dust the way it does here. The story itself may be worthwhile but the STORYTELLING is atrocious. The pacing is sheer torture. Unforgivably, pointlessly slow. I watched the last 45 minutes at 2x speed. Result? STILL SLOW!

The film is made up almost entirely of single-shot scenes, usually lasting several minutes each, with virtually no editing. Which means an almost complete absence of normal film grammar. If it takes someone 5 minutes to walk across the street, that's exactly what you'll see. Every. Damn. Step. If it takes someone 2 minutes to think of something to say, that's exactly what you'll see. In fact, you get a lot of that - 2 or 3 characters standing & staring in silence between brief lines of dialogue. For variety, they occasionally sit & stare.

Half the time, you're staring at the back of someone's head for minutes at a time or listening to someone speaking from off-screen. Because everything is shown from a single camera position and there's no editing. You'll see characters looking at something for a full minute before the film FINALLY shows you what they were looking at. My viewing experience went from intrigue to confusion to hope to impatience to annoyance and finally, a kind of infuriated boredom.

Imagine a novel that did something equivalent. Instead of "John crossed the street", you read 5 pages of "John took a step. And another step. And another step..." for five pages before finally reading "... and John entered the building."

The acting is no better. Virtually everyone speaks in a slow monotone, whether the situation is relaxed or tense. This is not the stoicism of characters trying to keep their emotions in check. No, they are just robotic. For the entire film.

I give this film 1 star because zero stars isn't allowed.

I watched In the Fog this June in Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä, Finland, with other four films by Sergei Losnitza which were presented there. While I really liked all the films I saw, this is the one which touched me the most.

The director Losnitza has stripped the story from everything that's not essential to show the tension and hopelessness of the situation the main character is in. Vladimir Svirskiy's acting is excellent and perfectly delivers Sushenya's a sort of fatalistic understanding of the gravity of his situation, as he has been made an unwilling pawn in a wartime plot of the occupiers. He has no friends, no place in the world, no direction except to follow his executioners, who then will become his closest confidants.