Grigori Chukhrai’s ‘Ballad of a Soldier’: A Simple, Bittersweet Tale on the Irreparable Costs of War

By Arun Kumar
Grigori Chukhrai and his cinematographers Vladimir Nikolayev, Era Savelyeva are triumphant in concealing the overly melodramatic dimensions of the story with a gentle lyrical quality. At times, the lyricism escalates the painful emotional quotient: for example, the surrealistic sequence after Alyosha parts from Shura.