Trial on the Road

Based on a story by the director’s father Yuriy German, who experienced war first hand, Prověrka na dorogach centers on a conflicted individual (allegedly based on a real person) who morphs from a Red Army sergeant into a Nazi collaborator, and then back into a Soviet soldier, this time a partisan. Regardless of how sincere he is in his last transformation and with German clearly on his side, some of his comrades cannot forgive him. Its groundbreaking psychological complexity aside, Prověrka na dorogach also dazzles as the arrival of a major visual talent. Everything that would later become German’s acclaimed and admired trademark style is already in evidence here: impossibly long and complex plan sequences, adorned with breathtaking (black-and-white) widescreen cinematography; baroque mise-en-scène, bursting with countless details; elaborate soundscapes; and a prevailing atmosphere of doom. (Viennale)