Feature film
Feelings
Jausmai
Synopsis
Sentiments: in 1944, the Courland lagoon is divided between the Germans who are retreating and the Soviets who are advancing. The fisherman Kasparas, a widower, crosses the bay with his two children to settle with his twin brother Andrius, on the shore already freed from German occupation. Agnė, Andrius's wife, who was once his friend, still loves him. Kasparas, who neither fought the occupiers nor collaborated with them, discovers that the house shelters Lithuanian nationalists hostile to the Soviet regime, who are preparing their flight to Sweden.
Context
Vytautas Žalakevičius wrote the screenplay from the novel by the Latvian Egons Līvs, Velniakaulio dvyniai; Jonas Tomaševičius shot the film in black and white, to a score by Vytautas Barkauskas. The first feature-length fiction film of its two directors, it was released on 28 December 1968, but the Soviet authorities restricted its distribution, and it was not shown outside Lithuania. The platform Klassiki sees it as a controversial classic that combines the intimate and the political, and the story of the two brothers parallels that of the country.
Who it is for
A film of about an hour and a half, without colour and sparing of words; no French release has been recorded.
Prizes and reception
Special Jury Prize at San Remo in 1975; ranked by Lithuanian critics among the best Lithuanian films of all time.