''In the Fog'' (russian: В тумане) is a 2012

war drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Sergei Loznitsa Sergei Vladimirovich Loznitsa ( be, Сяргей Уладзіміравіч Лазніца, russian: Сергей Владимирович Лозница, uk, Сергій Володимирович Лозниця; born 5 September 1964) is a Uk ...

. The film competed for the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The film won the Golden Apricot at the 2012

Yerevan International Film Festival The ''Golden Apricot'' Yerevan International Film Festival (GAIFF) ( hy, «Ոսկե Ծիրան» Երևանի միջազգային կինոփառատոն) is an annual film festival held in Yerevan, Armenia. The festival was founded in 2004 w ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

, for Best Feature Film.

Plot

The film is an adaptation from

Vasil Bykaŭ Vasil Uladzimiravič Bykaŭ (often spelled Vasil Bykov, be, Васі́ль Уладзі́міравіч Бы́каў, russian: Василь Влади́мирович Быков) (19 June 1924 – 22 June 2003) was a prolific Soviet and Belarus ...

's short story. In 1942 in Belarus during the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

, the Germans face strong resistance from the partisans and face the hatred of local people. The partisans suspect Sushenya, a track-walker, of collaboration with the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s because he is the only one released of a group of workers who derailed a German train. Two of them capture Sushenya and lead him to the forest where they plan to shoot him. They fall into a trap set by the Germans who severely wound Burov, one of the partisans. Sushenya attempts to save his executioner's life by carrying the wounded partisan on his back to the nearest village. Nevertheless, Sushenya remains under suspicion. He laments that he was a well-respected and trustworthy village resident, raising a family in peace, before the war changed that forever.

Cast

* Vladimir Svirskiy as Sushenya * Vladislav Abashin as Burov * Sergei Kolesov as Voitik * Yulia Peresild as Anelya *

Nadezhda Markina Nadezhda Konstantinovna Markina (russian: Наде́жда Константиновна Маркина; born 29 January 1959) is a Soviet and Russian actress. She was nominated for the Best Performance by an Actress at the European Film Awards, t ...

as Burov's mother *

Vlad Ivanov Vlad Ivanov (; born Vladimir Ivanov , 4 August 1969) is a Romanian actor of Lipovan origin. He is represented by Subtitle Talent Agency. Selected filmography * Barbie- Princess and the Pauper- King Dominik (Romanian voice) Awards * The ...

as Grossmeier

Reception

''In the Fog'' has an approval rating of 87% on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 31 reviews, and an average rating of 7.10/10. The consensus on the site states, "While it treads familiar narrative ground -- and is a mite predictable at times -- ''In the Fog'' proves a smart, thought-provoking antidote to Hollywood action movies." It also has a score of 78 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Writing for

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdasher ...

said it was "an intense, slow-burning and haunting drama."

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:In The Fog 2012 films 2012 war drama films 2010s historical drama films Russian war drama films Russian historical drama films Belarusian war films Belarusian drama films Dutch drama films Latvian drama films 2010s Russian-language films Partisan films Films set in Belarus Films set in the 1940s Eastern Front of World War II films Films directed by Sergei Loznitsa Belarusian World War II films Russian World War II films Dutch World War II films German World War II films 2010s German films