Two cows, one woman, one house and one horse for one life: now, that’s something to ponder. Again: two cows, one woman, one house and one horse for one life. Well… Two cows, one woman, one house and one horse for one life. No. The motherland is worth more than two cows, one woman, one house and one horse, and betraying the life in question would be the same as betraying the Soviet people. Here‘s a man who prefers to die instead of forfeiting his soul. The Nazi looks dumb-struck. The scene is played in an eerily jocular tone until things get serious, and bloody. The District Secretary might come as a surprise: Pyr’ev, ever the consummate professional, shows the versatility of his genius by delivering a lean and mean combat actioner – nothing in his oeuvre so far looks and plays quite like this one. It doesn’t matter that almost all of his films were riddled by shadows of doubts, bleak moments, dark undertows. The partisans win in the end, of course, but the liberation of the motherland is still far away, and will cost many – many, many, many – lives. Things will get uglier, much uglier than they already are – Pyr’ev leaves no doubt about the human cost of what will soon be remembered as the Great Patriotic War. In all this, the film is brutally honest. People at the time, it seems, appreciated Pyr’ev’s stand: reportedly, frontovikij remember The District Secretary fondly. And what was good enough for Ivan is certainly good enough for us.