Feature film
Nobody Wanted to Die
Niekas nenorėjo mirti
Vytautas Žalakevičius · 1965
Synopsis
In 1947, in a Lithuanian village, the chairman of the village soviet, Lokys, is killed by the brothers of the forest, the partisans hostile to the new regime; he is the fifth chairman shot that year. His four sons return to the village and swear to avenge him. Vaitkus, a former forest fighter, is forced to take the vacant post, and loyalties blur in a village divided between the two camps.
Context
Written and directed by the author, shot in black and white and widescreen by Jonas Gricius, to a score by Algimantas Apanavičius, the film had its premiere on 24 December 1965. The first Soviet film devoted to the civil war that followed the war in Lithuania, it passes for a Soviet-Baltic western, and a critic of the time judged that it could not have been made five years earlier or five years later. Its vision of the occupation and of collaboration remains controversial. Donatas Banionis plays a leading role in it.
Who it is for
A film of an hour and three quarters, in black and white, whose political reading remains debated; no French release has been found.
Prizes and reception
Grand Prize at the All-Union Festival in Kiev in 1966, USSR State Prize in 1967, best Soviet film of 1966 in the Sovetsky Ekran readers' poll.