Quiet Flows the Don

Adapted from Sholokhov's novel, this three-part film follows the breaking apart of the Don Cossacks through the First World War, the revolution of 1917 and the civil war. At its centre is Grigory Melekhov, who falls out with his village over his love for Aksinya, another man's wife, and then finds himself in the war fighting first on one side, then the other, then back again. Rather than choosing a side he is permanently caught between two fires. Running to five and a half hours in total, it is one of the most sustained adaptations Soviet cinema produced. Sergei Gerasimov does not thin out the novel's crowd of characters, and takes village life as seriously as the battle scenes. Pyotr Glebov, who plays Grigory, was an unknown actor until this part and it changed his career entirely. What stands out is that the civil war is not turned into a one-sided story of victory; loss remains loss on both sides.