Rozhovor s nepriatel'om (Patrik Lancaric, 2007)

In a snowbound warzone of indeterminate location, which may as well be Slovakia since that's where Facing the Enemy was shot, a German soldier is charged with taking a Russian prisoner into the woods to shoot him. Since the film really only has a cast of two, it's a case of so far, so Hell in the Pacific - you may remember John Boorman's ironically militaristically titled seminal 1968 drama on enemies becoming comrades once away from the commanding classes, with Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune stuck on a desert island. Game on for suspicion turning to frustration and finally bromance.
But Lancaric has loftier intentions. By making the German a questioning Christian and the Russian (both speaking Slovak, but then when do we question everyone speaking English?) a practical atheist, he develops the film into a debate of some intensity on the nature of motivation, spirituality and morality fit for any posturing Left Bank cafe (Lancaric is aware of this, and tries to deflect charges of pretentiousness by making the characters refer at several junctures to the overly philosophising nature of their discourse).
Whilst, despite the atmospheric backdrops, it feels very stagebound, some nuggets of genuine depth are garnered from the sifting, and though the denouement is a bit of a muddle, it's a work of real merit.

7/10