Movie Review: Ballad of a Soldier
I finished watching Ballad of a Soldier earlier this week, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ballad_of_a_soldier/.
Ballad of a Soldier per Rotten Tomatoes, was “the first Russian film to score an American success during the Cold War era”. It was released in 1959. The movie has a relatively rare 100% rating in Rotten Tomatoes, one of the reasons why I added it to my elliptical-walker-exercise-queue.
The story tells of a young Russian soldier during World War II who is given leave to visit his mother at home as a result of him knocking out a couple of tanks during a battle. While traveling home random events occur which lead him to do a number of good deeds for people and end up limiting the time he actually was able to spend at home. We are told at the very beginning of the film that he died during the war, which strengthens our feelings toward these events.