Twenty Days Without War


Twenty Days Without War is a 1976 Soviet film based on a story by Konstantin Simonov, directed by Aleksey German and starring Yuri Nikulin and Lyudmila Gurchenko.
The film describes how the romantic views of war as pictured in the Soviet war film industry were actually far different from the harsh realities of front line warfare.

Plot

Major Lopatin is a military journalist during World War II, who goes back to his hometown of Tashkent in Middle Asia at the end of 1942 to spend a 20-day leave following the Battle of Stalingrad and to see the shooting of a film based on the wartime articles he has written. There he is romantically involved with a woman named Nina.
Lopatin realizes that the romanticized views of warfare on the home front are vastly different from the realities he had encountered.

Production

The film was based on the novel and screenplay of Konstantin Simonov, a military journalist who wrote the famous poem "Wait for Me" during World War II in 1941.
The film was mostly shot in black and white, or very muted color, as looking aged to be visually closed to that wartime.

Cast