Ekskursante (2013)

	Also Known As: The Excursionist, Die Streunerin
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Audrius Juzenas
	Actors: Anastasija Marcenkaite, Raisa Ryazanova, Igor Savochkin
	Country: LT
	Genre: Drama, War
	Conditions of visioning: 30.10.2014, CinStar5, NFDL2014, OV Lithuanina/Russian with English subtitles
Synopsis: Following World War II and the establishment of Soviet power, there were mass deportations of residents of Baltic States to remote regions of the Soviet Union. The goal was to solidify Stalinist control and to prepare for a long-term population transfer. More than a hundred thousand Lithuanians were deported to Siberia. This fate also threatens 10-year-old Marija (Marcenkaite). Penned up in a crowded freight car with her heavily pregnant mother and other women, she finds herself on her way to the gulag. When her mother dies en route, Marija manages to escape.
Review: The story is based on the true story of a Lithuanian girl who managed to come back to Lithuania crossing 6000km (in the movie the girl makes about 900km). For the director, who answered some questions after the movie, the movie deals with the second world war, which stopped in 1968 with the death of the last deported soldier (i.e. resistant) chased by the Soviet Union, a long time after 1945. It is "a story on belief and power". It is the first time I see a movie from Lithuania working out their Second World War. Sociologically it is necessary to turn the page for the country to move on by catharsis. This is thus a road movie using car, train, plane, feet and meeting first Russian support with a grandma (Ryazanova) and her son (Savochkin) but also the soldiers. The atrocities that are shown or suggested are real. I saw the same in the Museum of the occupation of Latvia (other Baltic county) in Riga. The acting is right and has been for sure motivated by the story and the directing. The directing is indeed very good without being arty, for the camera, the natural lights, the scenery. Time to time the colours look like in the Technicolor of the 50s, especially when there is the coming back to Lithuania.  The Lithuanians have been chased because they were considered as Nazis by the Russians. The movie shows good and bad Russians (helping Marija or not) and almost only good Lithuanians, apart from the family who stoled one house. I do not know the History of Lithuania good enough and my quick search did not find any Nazi issues. But I guess, as any occupied country the y must have had people working for the Nazis and resistants.  The director Audrius Juzenas presented his movie in Moscow and in Lithuania. He explains that iIn both sites, "the reactions have been very polarised" and contradictory. Saying that it was both pro- and anti- Russian. In a time of tension between European Union and Russia, this political polarisation is easy. The movie was not polarised in one or the other direction and fulfills its cathartic job, normally for the best, that both countries can start again to work together.
Rating: 8 /10