Rainbow (1944) is a Soviet
patriotic propaganda film about the brutal Nazi-German occupation of a village
in Ukraine. Filmed in 1943 while Ukraine was still occupied, the film was shot
in the U.S.S.R. in central Asia rather than in Ukraine. The plot centers on the
efforts of Nazi captain Kurt Werner to get a resistance (partisan) fighter to
reveal where her group was heading. The woman is stark (strong), for she
does not budge even as the Germans torture her both mentally and physically. I
contend that the film pivots on a few lines spoken by an old Russian man in the
village on the nature of power itself. Those lines stand out for being the only
philosophical abstractions in the dialogue of the film. The film is about the
nature of power.
The full essay is at Rainbow.
