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The crowning triumph of a career cut tragically short, Larisa Shepitko’s final film won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and went on to be hailed as one of the finest works of late-Soviet cinema. In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard-swept landscape of Nazi-occupied Belarus. When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film’s earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory. With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch-black despair, The Ascent finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • New selected-scene commentary featuring film scholar Daniel Bird • New video introduction by Anton Klimov, son of director Larisa Shepitko and filmmaker Elem Klimov • New interview with actor Lyudmila Polyakova • The Homeland of Electricity, a 1967 short film by Shepitko • Larisa, a 1980 short film tribute to his late wife by Klimov • Two documentaries from 2012 about Shepitko’s life, work, and relationship with Klimov • Program from 1999 featuring an interview with Shepitko • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by poet Fanny Howe

Description

In 1984, virologist Anna Fedorova (Milena Radulovic) was recruited for a government team dispatched to the experimental borehole in Kola after various researchers vanished. The Soviets feared that lethal biologics were being secretly developed there... and the investigators would discover to their terror just how much those fears were justified. Subterranean shocker also stars Sergey Ivanyuk, Vadim Demchog, Kirill Kovbas. 115 min. Widescreen; Soundtrack: Russian; Subtitles: English. In Russian with English subtitles.

Description

In 1984, virologist Anna Fedorova (Milena Radulovic) was recruited for a government team dispatched to the experimental borehole in Kola after various researchers vanished. The Soviets feared that lethal biologics were being secretly developed there... and the investigators would discover to their terror just how much those fears were justified. Subterranean shocker also stars Sergey Ivanyuk, Vadim Demchog, Kirill Kovbas. 115 min. Widescreen; Soundtrack: Russian; Subtitles: English. In Russian with English subtitles.

Description

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet film industry set out to prove it could outdo Hollywood with a production that would dazzle the world: a titanic, awe inspiring adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic tome in which the fates of three souls—the blundering, good hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha—collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. Employing a cast of thousands and an array of innovative camera techniques, director Sergei Bondarchuk conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and breathtaking battles that overwhelm with their expressionistic power. As a statement of Soviet cinema’s might, War and Peace succeeded wildly, garnering the Academy Award for best foreign language film and setting a new standard for epic moviemaking. TWO BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack • New interviews with cinematographer Anatoly Petritsky and filmmaker Fedor Bondarchuk, son of Sergei Bondarchuk • Two 1966 documentaries about the making of the film • Television program from 1967 profiling actor Ludmila Savelyeva, and featuring Sergei Bondarchuk • New program with historian Denise J. Youngblood (Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace”: Literary Classic to Soviet Cinematic Epic) detailing the cultural and historical contexts for the film • Janus rerelease trailer • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by critic Ella Taylor

Description

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet film industry set out to prove it could outdo Hollywood with a production that would dazzle the world: a titanic, awe inspiring adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic tome in which the fates of three souls—the blundering, good hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha—collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. Employing a cast of thousands and an array of innovative camera techniques, director Sergei Bondarchuk conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and breathtaking battles that overwhelm with their expressionistic power. As a statement of Soviet cinema’s might, War and Peace succeeded wildly, garnering the Academy Award for best foreign language film and setting a new standard for epic moviemaking. TWO BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack • New interviews with cinematographer Anatoly Petritsky and filmmaker Fedor Bondarchuk, son of Sergei Bondarchuk • Two 1966 documentaries about the making of the film • Television program from 1967 profiling actor Ludmila Savelyeva, and featuring Sergei Bondarchuk • New program with historian Denise J. Youngblood (Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace”: Literary Classic to Soviet Cinematic Epic) detailing the cultural and historical contexts for the film • Janus rerelease trailer • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by critic Ella Taylor

Description

At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet film industry set out to prove it could outdo Hollywood with a production that would dazzle the world: a titanic, awe inspiring adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic tome in which the fates of three souls—the blundering, good hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha—collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars. Employing a cast of thousands and an array of innovative camera techniques, director Sergei Bondarchuk conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and breathtaking battles that overwhelm with their expressionistic power. As a statement of Soviet cinema’s might, War and Peace succeeded wildly, garnering the Academy Award for best foreign language film and setting a new standard for epic moviemaking. TWO BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack • New interviews with cinematographer Anatoly Petritsky and filmmaker Fedor Bondarchuk, son of Sergei Bondarchuk • Two 1966 documentaries about the making of the film • Television program from 1967 profiling actor Ludmila Savelyeva, and featuring Sergei Bondarchuk • New program with historian Denise J. Youngblood (Bondarchuk’s “War and Peace”: Literary Classic to Soviet Cinematic Epic) detailing the cultural and historical contexts for the film • Janus rerelease trailer • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by critic Ella Taylor