Expiation (2012) (Blu-ray)

Expiation

The film takes place on the eve of the first post-war New Year in 1946 in a devastated southern city, where until recently representatives of various nationalities lived in peace and harmony. The Moloch of war divided them into victims and executioners, giving rise to endless compassion and inhuman baseness. However, post-war life in devastation, hunger and poverty turned into a difficult ordeal. The dishwasher, the widow of the hero-pilot, steals from the police canteen in order to feed her sixteen-year-old daughter and two goons, whom, out of the kindness of her heart, she sheltered in her wretched home. The indignant daughter denounces her mother and she goes to prison to atone for her sin. The film's theme of redemption is complex and not straightforward. A young lieutenant, pilot, Jewish by nationality, returns to his hometown after hospital and learns that his entire family died during the occupation at the hands of a scoundrel neighbor. A blind thirst for revenge...blood for blood...turned into emptiness - the scoundrel has been punished and is rotting alive in prison. The lieutenant's sizzling feeling pushes him to commit suicide. And only a new feeling awakening in him for a young girl in love with him saves him from a fatal step.