Destiny of a Man
| Fate of a Man | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Sergei Bondarchuk |
| Produced by |
Goskino Mosfilm |
| Written by |
Jury Lukin Feodor Shakmagonov (screenplay) Mikhail Sholokhov (novel) |
| Starring |
Sergei Bondarchuk Zynaida Kiriyenko Pavel Volkov Pavlik Boriskin |
| Music by | Veniamin Basner |
| Cinematography | Sergey Veronkov |
| Distributed by | Mosfilm |
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Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
Fate of a Man (Russian: Судьба человека, translit. Sudba Cheloveka), also released as A Man's Destiny and Destiny of a Man is a 1959 Soviet film adaptation of the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, and also the directorial debut of Sergei Bondarchuk. In the year of its release it won the Grand Prize at the 1st Moscow International Film Festival; Bondarchuk would win again for the first part of his colossal adaption of Tolstoy's War and Peace, titled Andrei Bolkonsky, six years later.
The film begins in the Soviet Union in spring of 1946, as truck driver Andrei Sokolov (Bondarchuk) and his young son travel along a road in the country and run into a man Sokolov recognizes as a fellow military driver. Sokolov begins to tell the story of his experiences upon returning from the Russian Civil War and the famine of 1922. A flashback reveals Andrei building a house in Kuban, where he meets and falls in love with his future wife Irina. Soon the pair are married and have a son, Anatoly (nicknamed Tolyushka), and two daughters. Andrei leads a happy family life for 17 years, until the Second World War.
As the war begins, Andrei is enlisted as a Red Army truck driver, leaving his family behind. He is ordered to drive on a road under bombardment to carry vital supplies to the army on the other side. Stukas detect and divebomb Andrei's convoy; while the other trucks stop and the personnel run for cover Andrei continues driving through the gunfire, until a nearby explosion upturns his truck and knocks Andrei unconscious. When he comes to, Andrei finds himself at the mercy of two German officers, who send him - along with many other Russian soldiers - to an abandoned church, where a Russian doctor fixes his dislocated shoulder.
The next morning all soldiers suspected of being either communists, commissars, officers, or Jews are rounded up and executed, including the doctor who had helped Andrei, and the remainder are sent to a concentration camp. Andrei, desperately lonely, dreams of his family calling out to him and longing for his return. Andrei, along with all the other prisoners, is set to work as a forced labourer; an escape attempt ends with his recapture after four days and transfer to a concentration camp in Germany. Andrei is subsequently relocated between many German camps, including B-14 (near Küstrin) where each prisoner is required to shift four cubic metres of rubble every day. One night Andrei is called into the camp leader's office and sentenced to execution by shooting for having complained in the barracks. Before he takes Andrei out into the yard shoot him (saying he will do him the honor of shooting him personally), the commander gives him one final glass of vodka - to salute the German victory at Stalingrad. Andrei refuses the offer, but agrees to toast the imminent end of his suffering; after downing the large glass, the commander offers him a bite to eat, but Andrei says he never eats after only one glass. The officer pours him another, which he downs equally quickly, again refusing food, claiming he never drinks after only two glasses. The German officers, awed by his capacity, applaud him, and the commander gives him a third, which he manages to drink, now having put away a whole bottle, to everyone's amazement. The commander, who speaks perfect Russian, tells him he is a brave soldier, spares his life, and gives him a loaf of bread and some butter or cheese; he manages to stagger back to the barracks, says "Everyone gets an equal share," and collapses. We see the prisoners carefully dividing up the precious food.
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Wikipedia