Thanks Dave. The person who recommended it to me, also told me they had a psychologist along the set to help the kid as much as possible.
I can understand that as Klimov used no professional actors in the film. There are scenes that are depictions of acts that are...pure evil and difficult even for me to take...and I'm more or less inured to violence in films.
I'd also recommend Eisenstein's Alexsander Nevsky. This is a beautiful yet harrowing...piece of pre war propaganda...a fantastic polemic against Nazi Germany.
Also very prescient in scenes, one in particular shows what was to come with the arrival of the Wehrmacht, SS and Einsatzgruppen on Soviet territory...scenes we see years later depicted in Klimov's film.
The music is brilliant, a score by Sergei Prokofiev...for me,it's a companion piece to Klimov's film-I always watch them together. My favourite of the Great directors work.