Niekas nenorejo mirti

Von den LeserInnen des sowjetischen Filmmagazins Screen zum besten Film 1966 gewählt, ist No One Wanted to Die dennoch ein sowjetkrischer Film. Er handelt von den „Waldbrüdern“, den baltischen Partisanen, die während und nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg aktiv waren. Die Wahl, diese Geschichte als Western zu erzählen, gab dem Regisseur die Möglichkeit, die Kritik gut zu verpacken:Keiner wollte sterben und niemand wollte töten - eine klare, jedoch sehr gewagte Aussage zu jener Zeit.

At the end of 1965, the young Lithuanian director Vitautas Zalakiavichus came to Moscow with his new film No One Wanted to Die. Everybody knew that Zalakiavichus’ film would be about the ‚Forest Brothers‘, the anti-communist partisans who operated in Lithuania (and other Baltic states) during and after World War II. But no one expected an anti-Soviet film. At first sight No One Wanted to Die is a typical Soviet film. Communists and peasants are good; Forest Brothers are bad. The plot is about the revenge of the sons of a village chairman, who is killed by guerrillas. But the main miracle of this film is the choice to make it as a Western, which allowed Zalakiavichus to tell the truth about the ‚Forest Brothers‘. The film‘s title states a perfectly clear message, given to the audience with typical Western landscapes and brutal masculine protagonists. (Sergey Lavrentyev)