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The question of whether it's actually possible to make a true anti-war film has, without hyperbole, hovered over the entire history of film, without ever quite being answered to satisfaction. What makes it a tricky imbroglio is that the very idea of anti-war filmmaking presupposes that a film will be going against one of the core tenets of commercial cinema: The mission to thrill, entertain, and satisfy viewers. To be truly anti-war, a movie can't stop at just paying lip service to the idea that war is a bad thing whose professed heroics are an illusion; it has to actually live that idea, inhabit it in its very emotional charge, making an active effort to not glorify combat or naturalize war's dehumanizing emotional logic by wringing catharsis from its trials and triumphs. And, by nature, any such movie will be some degree of unsatisfying, if not outright hostile to the viewer.

The 1970s were a special time in American cinema. After the box office woes of the 1960s, bewildered studio executives were unsure of how to connect with audiences, whose tastes and impulses were shifting in the hectic milieu of that decade. The change began at the tail end of the previous decade with "The Graduate," "Bonnie and Clyde," and "Midnight Cowboy," all of which pushed boundaries regarding sex, sexuality, and violence. It was Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider" that would set the mold of "New Hollywood," a period in which studios afforded even the most difficult directors unprecedented creative freedom.

From the summer of 1969 until some time in the early 1980s (the exact timeframe is disputed), "New Hollywood" birthed scores of classics from a generation of new talent, the most famous of which included William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg, to name just a few. Anyone...

"They say he sent 100 Krauts to meet their maker." Dark Sky Films has released an official US trailer for the Russian WWII action thriller Red Ghost: Nazi Hunter, formerly known as simply The Red Ghost. This opened in Russia last year and is hitting VOD in the US soon. December 30, 1941. In Vyazma a small group of Soviet soldiers are trying to return to their comrades. They are suddenly caught in an unequal battle with a special unit of the Wehrmacht. None of these brave soldiers was born a hero but they became heroes. And were helped in their battle by the Red Ghost. The myth of the "Red Ghost" is about a lone hero who picks off Nazi soldiers one by one. He seems to be able to vanish almost magically into the forests and even to come back from the dead. Starring Aleksey Shevchenkov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Yuriy Borisov, Polina Chernyshyova,...

It’s nearly perfect and utterly profound, a masterpiece — Larisa Shepitko made only four theatrical features yet this Soviet movie about the Great Patriotic War earns her a firm place in film history. Moral betrayals under stress, in the face of profound evil… it’s the human condition. Astonishing for a Mosfilm production of the time, the film equates nationalistic sacrifice with Christian martyrdom. Criterion’s extras tell the impressive story behind the making of this major Soviet production.

The Ascent

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1063

1977 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 109 min. / Voskhozhdenie / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date January 26, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Boris Plotnikov, Vladimir Gostyukhin, Sergey Yakovlev, Lyudmila Polyakova, Viktoriya Goldentul, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Mariya Vinogradova, Nikolai Sektimenko, Sergei Kanishchev.

Cinematography: Vladimir Chukhnov, Pavel Lebeshev

Film Editor: Valeriya Belova

Original Music: A. Shnitke

Written by Yuri Klepikov, Larisa Shepitko from a novel by Vasiliy Bykov

Directed by Larisa Shepitko

A few months...

An odd but entrancing tale of civilizations in conflict, "Close to Eden, '' the story of a traditional family in Chinese-held inner Mongolia, may require some patient handling. However, the combination of unusual setting and warm, accessible tone may turn it into a profitable select-site performer.

Set in the very recent past, the film centers around the family of Gombo (Bayaertu), his wife Pagma (Badema), their two children and his mother. They live the centuries-old life of Mongolian nomads, tending their small herds of sheep, cattle and horses and living in a large tent.

The outside world has impinged only slightly on their lives, largely through the accordion that daughter Bourma (Bao Yongyan) has been given by a city-dwelling uncle. However, one day a Russian contract worker, Sergei (Vladimir Gostukhin), falls asleep at the wheel of his truck, becomes stranded and ends up the guest of Gombo and Pagma.

Because Gombo and Pagma have reached the government-imposed limit of three children, Pagma has been urging her husband to go to town and buy condoms and, while he's at it, a television. So Gombo and two horses hitch a ride with Sergei and travel off to a nearby city, a vast jury-rigged collection of apartment blocks, huge industrial plants, and stores crammed with the latest in consumer goods.

For the opening sequences, director Nikita Mikhalkov uses relaxed and patient rhythms to great effect. Typically, he spends as much time watching Gombo catch a dragonfly in flight and showing it to his son Bouin (Wurinile, a tremendously appealing natural talent) or on how the family slaughters a sheep as on more plot-oriented material.

Once Gombo and Sergei get to the city, the pace quickens as the two -- singly and together -- engage in a series of seriocomic escapades. When Gombo leaves for home, the film segues into an elaborate dream sequence in which a drunken uncle (Baoyinhexige) appears as Genghis Khan at the head of a column of soldiers and chastises Gombo for straying from Mongol ways.

The lament for a passing culture is a familiar one, but Mikhalkov has appeared to capture the whole nature of Mongolian life so successfully, the film is unusually persuasive.

Also, by keeping the love between Gombo and Pagma the central focus, Mikhalkov ensures that the prevailing tone will be warm and the issues intensely personalized rather than abstract. Even the vast rolling landscape of the Steppes becomes intimate.

CLOSE TO EDEN

MIRAMAX

Director-Original idea Nikita Mikhalkov

Supervising producer Michel Seydoux

Executive producer Jean-Louis Piel

Story Nikita Mikhalkov, Roustam Ibraguimbekov

Screenplay Roustam Ibraguimbekov

Director of photography Villenn Kaluta

Production designer Aleksei Levtchenko

Editor Joelle Hache

Music Eduard Artemiev

Color

Cast:

Gombo Bayaertu

Pagma Badema

Sergei Valdimir Gostukhin

Running time -- 106 minutes

No MPAA rating

(c) The Hollywood Reporter...