The career of Larisa Shepitko, an icon of sixties and seventies Soviet cinema, was tragically cut short when she was killed in a car crash at age thirty-nine, just as she was emerging on the international scene. The body of work she left behind, though smalI, is masterful, and her genius for visualIy evoking characters' interior worIds is never more striking than in her two greatest works: Wings, an intimate yet exhilarating portrait of a female fighter piIot turned provincial headmistress, and The Ascent, a gripping, tragic WorId War ll parabIe of betrayal and martyrdom. A true artist, who had deftIy used the Soviet fiIm industry to make statements both personaI and universaI, Shepitko remains one of the greatest unsung fiImmakers of alI time. |