This is a very touching and at times highly dramatic account on the personal lives of school boys and their heroic Gymmnasium Master, with some marginal characters as well, who all fell victims of the mass shooting of ~ 7,000 civilian male hostages. It is a story based on the real life tragedy that took place in Kragujevac on October 21, 1941. As some grammar school (Gymnasium) youngsters less than 18-yr-old have also been killed, the life stories along with some touching private details (the first love, pubertal romances, premature existential analyzes, the first smoked cigarette event) take most of the plot. The life of the brave Gymnasium Master (Dragoslav-Drakce Popovic), who could have easily rescued himself from death by the German shooting squad but have instead chosen to die (although still young man and a father of four) holding his pupils in his arms is portrayed in most humane strokes. The Gymnasium Master's petty intra-family conflicts and his daughter's first romantic rendes-vous (with a boy of his own class who was eventually shot by his side in the execution itself) were rendered in a superb combination with his underlying ethic frustration and attempts to save children's lives. The school boys' roles were vigorously and authoritatively done. The brother of renown Serbian movie actress Milena Dravic, Radoslav Dravic, made his only film appearance in this movie and Bole Stosic (Bole "iz bureta") made his enchanting debut as a schoolboy whom his mother unwittingly prevented from escaping the Nazi searching patrol. It seems that not the killing of young school boys itself is all that moving, rather it is the continual realization of what has been lost in terms of love from the universal budget of human potentiality for affection and tolerance (both German and the Serbian). I have seen this movie a number of times but despite its 'heaviness' it fails to oppress - rather it infuses one with hope that life is basically Love indestructible.
