In 1943, a Belarusian boy named Flyora, along with another young boy, digs up a rifle from a trench to join the Soviet partisans. They do this in defiance of their village elder, who warns that such a move would draw the attention of the occupying Germans. Their risky discovery is noticed from above by a Fw 189 reconnaissance aircraft, signaling that their bold choice has been observed.
The following day, partisans come to Flyora’s home to enlist him, despite his mother’s pleas against sending him into danger. Flyora is whisked away to a partisan camp in the forest, where he becomes a low-rank militiaman, doing menial tasks and learning the rough realities of wartime life. When the group that trained to fight departs, their commander, Kosach, orders Flyora and a few others to stay behind at the camp. The weight of this decision crushes Flyora, and he wanders into the trees in tears. It is there that he encounters Glasha, a young, emotionally unsettled partisan nurse, whose presence adds a fragile humanity to the harsh world around them. Their quiet moment is shattered as dive bombers and German paratroopers strike the forest, forcing the two to flee, hiding from passing officers and sharing a sleepless night beneath the shelter of a tree.
Together, Flyora and Glasha make their way toward Flyora’s village, only to find it emptied of life. Flyora clings to the belief that his family is alive, perhaps waiting on a distant island beyond a bog, and he races off in that hope. Glasha follows, and soon she happens upon a gruesome sight—behind Flyora’s house lies a pile of executed villagers. She urges him to leave quickly, and the two slip into a bog, where fear and guilt blow through their minds. As they struggle through the marsh, Glasha yells that his family is dead, triggering a shared moment of despair. They are rescued by Rubezh, a partisan fighter, who leads them to the remaining villagers. The village elder, scarred by gasoline burns, relays the grim truth of Flyora’s losses and reiterates the warning about digging up the rifle. Battle-scarred guilt drives Flyora toward a suicidal impulse—submerging his head in the bog—only to be pulled back by Glasha and the villagers, who refuse to let him surrender to despair.
Rubezh guides Flyora and two companions on a raid for food at a warehouse, but they discover it guarded by German troops and are forced to retreat. In the chaos, Flyora’s two companions are killed by a land mine, and a tense moment of coercion follows as Rubezh and Flyora compel a Nazi-collaborating farmer to surrender his cow. The raid ends tragically when a German machine gun kills Rubezh and the cow in a brutal moment of loss. In a desperate bid to move the cow, Flyora attempts to seize a horse and cart from another man, but the farmer persuades him to hide his gun and Red Army jacket as SS troops appear. The farmer then guides Flyora to his house in Perekhody village, seeking safety amid advancing occupation.
The occupation tightens its grip as German troops and collaborators surround and occupy the village. Flyora witnesses the march of women, children, and the elderly, forcibly driven down the street. He warns them that they are being herded to their deaths, but he is corralled into a barn church with the rest. The Germans seal the doors, trapping the terrified occupants inside while the soldiers revel in their brutality. Flyora steps out with a young woman and her child; the woman’s child is violently thrust back inside as the mother is dragged away to be raped. Explosives are hurled into the church, the windows are bricked up, and the building is set ablaze. The screams inside intertwine with the soldiers’ laughter as the conflagration consumes the innocent. A German officer forces a pistol against Flyora’s head to pose for a grim photograph, then abandons him as the soldiers depart.
The scene leaves Flyora to confront the full horror of the massacre, a shared memory that embodies the senseless cruelty of war and the fragility of human life in the face of systematic violence.
The film features Bumpen in the role of Self.
