The war has ended and Soviet troops are marching past the ruins of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.  Among them, a young Ukrainian, Ivan Orliuk, who hails from the Dnipr region. Before the war, he tilled the soil and lived a simple and peaceful like in his beloved Ukraine.  But with the Fascist invasion of the Soviet Union, he is forced to take up arms.  This is the story of that journey; the hardships of those left behind under German occupation; the difficulties of adjusting to peace in a liberated country.  Like many of Dovzhenko's films, the monologues are verbose and preachy; the plot abstract and often confusing.  Subtitling rarely does little to clarify the opaque; the constant overacting little to relieve the oppressive feeling of watching unvarnished propaganda.  Still, interpeting between the lines and watching carefully reveal a deep and genuine love by the director for his homeland and its culture. 

DVD-R is in Russian with switchable English subtitles.

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