Franz + Polina

Franz + Polina
Directed by	Mikhail Segal
Produced by	Oleg Urushev
Written by	Ales Adamovich
Starring	Adrian Topol Svetlana Ivanova
Music by	Andjei Petras
Cinematography	Maksim Trapo
Editing by	Rinat Khalilullin
Release dates	November 10, 2006 (US)
Running time	119 minutes
Language	Belarusian, Russian, German

Franz + Polina is a 2006 Russian romantic drama film set in 1943 in occupied Byelorussia. It tells the story of Franz, an SS soldier who deserts, and Polina, a Byelorussian woman whose village is massacred.

The film received several accolades, including the 2007 FIPA D'Or Grand Prize.^[1]

Plot

Franz stays at a Byelorussian village and falls in love with Polina. The Nazis settled as friendly sympathizers in an effort to gain the confidence of the villagers while they await the order burn the villages to the ground and kill the inhabitants. Franz kills his commanding officer to save his new girl friend's mother. When her partisan brother returns he whispers to Polina to get Franz away and she passes Franz off as her deaf-mute brother. Franz impregnates Polina after briefly settling in a log cabin in the woods.

Always on the run, Polina is shot by a collaborator but saved by Franz as they join a band of refugees. Franz kills a German officer for his uniform and infiltrates a nearby village to obtain an antibiotic. When he returns he is already delirious with typhoid fever and accidentally reveals his national identity by slurring in German. The refugees are sympathetic with the exception of a small boy, the sole survivor of a family that was lured back to the village by the seemingly humane behavior of the SS. He has a gun, bought with his father's watch, and his adoptive mother and sister are unable to dissuade him from using it on Franz. They warn Polina and soon the pair are on the run again.

Their escape is interrupted by a German patrol which in turn is ambushed by partisans. After this rescue Franz is at the river bank retrieving water for pregnant Polina when the boy appears with the gun. The movie closes with the boy returning with the water and comforting a screaming Polina.

DVD release

The notes on the DVD case compare the lovers to Romeo and Juliet. Their differing nationalities are stressed by printing the title in two alphabets, namely as Franz + Полина.

References

External links

• Franz + Polina at the Internet Movie Database
• Film's official website
• About the film by Denise J. Youngblood, University of Vermont