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  • Adaptation Displacement: The film is way more well-known than the novel it's based on.
  • Adorkable: Flyora at the start of the film is naive, eager to please, and somewhat socially awkward. Driven home by the fact that he's wearing a suit that's a size too big for him on the day he joins; apparently he thought he should look his best for La RĂ©sistance, and so dug out one of his dad's old suits.
  • Anvilicious: Flyora being unable to shoot the images of Hitler as a schoolboy and a baby. It sends a message that speaks volumes to the viewer.
    Do you really believe Hitler was born evil?
    Do you really believe that killing him, even as a baby, would prevent World War II?
  • Catharsis Factor: After a whole movie of atrocities against innocents, it feels so good to see the Nazis get curb-stomped by a pissed off and armed resistance that is actually capable of fighting back.
  • Complete Monster: The nameless, young Obersturmfuhrer is an ice-eyed Nazi who stands out as the most inhuman member of the sadistic SS Dirlewanger troop, being even worse than the old man himself. Descending on a small town with his unit, the Obersturmfuhrer rounds up the entire populace in a church and gives them an ultimatum: any can leave, but they must abandon their children. The Obersturmfuhrer then torches the entire building to the ground with the screaming population still inside; the one woman who attempts to escape with a child gets sent off by the Obersturmfuhrer to be gang-raped into insanity after her child is tossed back into the church. When he's finally confronted at the end of a gun, the Obersturmfuhrer defiantly spits that his victims deserved it all and need to be wiped out, even remarking he singled out the children to kill them because "problems always start with the kids".
  • Heartwarming Moments: It's a small one, but in a movie this horrifying, you take what you can get. At the end, Flyora balks at the idea of killing baby Hitler, showing that in spite of all the nightmares he endured, he did not surrender his humanity.
  • Memetic Mutation: War is... LE BAD! Explanation 
  • Moment of Awesome: It's implied at the end that the Bielorussian partisans gave a well-deserved beatdown to the Nazis. The Nazis were tough when going against unarmed civilians but got their asses kicked when they ran into people who could fight back.
  • Moral Event Horizon: The actions of the SS troops at the ending, especially when they burn the village church down with all the families inside. When the church first catches fire, the soldiers cheer and break into unanimous applause.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Most scenes in the latter half of the movie, from the swamp and onwards. The most chilling fact is that everything here happened in reality. No Hollywood History at all. If you really want to sleep well, take a look at the Nightmare Fuel page.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Technically, he's a three-scene wonder, but the nameless young Obersturmfuhrer is memorable for delivering some of the movie's most chilling dialogue during his brief screentime. Whereas his fellow soldiers cravenly beg for their lives, he shows no fear in front of the partisans and tells them to their faces that they're subhumans who don't deserve to exist. What makes it all the more unsettling to watch is that it's clear he's a true believer in the cause of national socialism. The other Waffen-SS troops seem like they're only in it to gratify their depraved whims, but he really believes in the righteousness of the Third Reich's genocidal conquests.
  • Realism-Induced Horror: What makes this film such a haunting experience is that it depicts the horrors of war in a RIDICULOUSLY authentic fashion, showing not just the horrendous atrocities that happen there in extremely realistic and graphic detail, but also how war can thoroughly affect a person's psyche, progressively turning them from a normal human being to a traumatized, broken, empty shell of their former self. It doesn't help the war crimes in the movie were very much Truth in Television.
  • Sacred Cow: This is considered to be one of the best war films ever made.
  • Signature Scene: The Nazis pointing a gun to Flyora's head, for a photo opportunity amidst all the horror and human misery they have caused, and then leaving him alive (or, more accurately, casually discarding him after they are done with him), letting him sit alone in frozen horror as he tries to digest everything he has just witnessed.
  • Too Cool to Live: Poor, poor Rubezh. He acts as a surrogate big brother to Flyora and guides him on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines, only to be unceremoniously gunned down while stealing a cow.
  • Tough Act to Follow: After this film, Elem Klimov felt he'd said everything he needed to say as a director, and retired from film-making.
  • Values Dissonance: The filmmakers (are rumored to have) killed the cow for real, and we see the young actor handling its corpse and stabbing it with a knife. Later, a tableau of war carnage includes a horse that was apparently crippled in real life. The bird embryos that Flyora kills after stepping on their eggs also seem to be real. In modern times, it's considered in bad taste to kill animals for the purpose of a film. Hopefully it is just rumors...
  • The Woobie: Flyora first and foremost, but Glasha and the poor village girl who gets gang-raped by the SS are also major examples.

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