NOBODY WANTED TO DIE / NIEKAS NENOREJO MIRTI (1965)
Directed by Vytautas Žalakevičius
107 minutes
"This cult 'red' Lithuanian western is both a partial reworking of Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI and a complex accounting for the legacy of Sovietization and World War II. In 1947, a small farming community is torn between allegiances to the Soviet Union and its Partisan 'brothers in the woods' after the village council's chairman is murdered. Brilliantly shot by Jonas Gricius (Kozintsev's HAMLET and KING LEAR), this heightened pro- and anti-Soviet drama draws intriguing comparisons with the McCarthyist Hollywood westerns of the 1950s and is directed by one of Lithuanian cinema's most celebrated figures." –ACMI (AUSTRALIAN CENTRE FOR THE MOVING IMAGE)