Forest of the Hanged

In the regimental court, Lieutenant Bologa casts the decisive vote to condemn Second Lieutenant Svoboda to death for desertion. The verdict underscores the tension between ethnic loyalties and imperial duty. The moment marks Bologa's first immersion into the brutal legal logic of the army and the costs of dissent.

Svoboda is led to the gallows and executed by hanging as the regiment watches. The public execution exposes the fragility of comradeship within the Austro-Hungarian Army. Bologa, Klapka, and the others witness the punishment that will haunt him.

The act of watching Svoboda die unsettles Bologa and plants seeds of doubt about his own role in the empire. He begins to question the purpose of his life and the moral clarity of the order he has followed. The execution becomes a turning point in his conscience.

While still processing the day’s events, Bologa meets Captain Klapka, a Czech officer recently transferred to the same regiment. Klapka’s perspectives broaden Bologa’s sense of shared guilt among minority soldiers. Their encounter deepens Bologa's growing sense that uniform loyalty masks deeper divisions.

During a post-execution dinner with fellow officers, Captain Cervenko condemns violence with Tolstoyan certitude, insisting agony is needed for love to grow. Klapka counters with dark humor about love fed by bullets and hangings. A Hungarian officer notes that, despite their talk, they fight and die as a multi-ethnic army, highlighting the empire’s paradoxes.

Back in their quarters, Bologa repeats that Svoboda was innocent, while Klapka warns that guilt is shared across all who wear the uniform. A bright beam of light floods the room, rotating and waking them both. Klapka says any light, from any source, is welcome in their darkness.

Bologa is ordered to judge twelve Romanian peasants accused of espionage, a task that compounds his moral distress. Unable to bear condemning more of his own people, he makes the fateful decision to desert toward the Romanian lines. The act foreshadows a fatal consequence.

He attempts to desert, dreaming of escape to the Romanian side, but is quickly caught. The authorities sentence him to hanging for desertion, a punishment that seals his fate within the imperial system. The moment marks the collapse of his certainty and his will to resist.

As he is transported to the jail, Bologa passes through the forest where the twelve Romanians he was to judge now hang from the trees. The sight sharpens his sense of doom and the cost of his choices. The forest becomes a grim mirror to the courtroom’s earlier orders.

In his jail cell, the people who care about him come to see him, and Klapka pleads that Bologa can claim he merely got lost. Bologa refuses the plea, insisting on facing the consequences of his choices. The encounter seals his sense that he can no longer live as he has.

The film concludes on the aftermath of Bologa’s crisis, leaving open the question of whether he will endure the execution yet his inner transformation remains complete. The seeds of doubt sown by Svoboda’s death and Klapka’s presence have redefined his sense of identity and loyalty. The audience is left with the sense that his life as he knew it can never resume.