Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Before Winter Comes
Summary
Before Winter Comes is a 1969 British comedy-drama war film directed by J. Lee Thompson from a screenplay by Andrew Sinclair.
Before Winter Comes takes place in the immediate aftermath of World War II. British Major Giles Burnside (David Niven) is assigned to an refugee camp in occupied Austria; his mission is to send the groups of displaced civilians to either the Russian zone or the American zone. Burnside is a by-the-book officer but he runs into trouble with the translation of the many different languages. However, one of the refugees, Janovic (Topol), can speak many languages and is willing to help. Janovic quickly conveys Burnside's orders and helps the camp run smoothly. Janovic runs into romance with a lovely innkeeper, Maria (Anna Karina), until he discovers her affair with Burnside. Meanwhile, Janovic is found to be a Red Army deserter, who should be returned to the Soviet authorities to be executed. Burnside offers to help him escape, but Janovic cannot decide whether to trust him.
During a down moment Major Burnside tells a story to Pilkington about a brave Major who tried to defuse a bomb on a bridge by walking into enemy fire. He describes it as a chance to win a medal for bravery. As he finishes, the story switches to a general who reveals that Burnside was the major in question and his "brave" mistake led to the death of some 200 men and his posting to the camp.
Janovic makes a vain attempt at escaping to Switzerland but is captured by Americans and returned to Burnside. As Burnside organises his release to Linz and freedom, he is contacted by the British army who inform him that Jovanovic is to be sent to Freistadt (and his death) to prevent any conflict with the Russians. Burnside reluctantly sends Janovic to Freistadt but conceals it by labelling the truck as Linz. At the last moment, Lieutenant Pilkington arrives and threatens to stop the truck but is ordered not to intervene. Pilkington races after Jovanovic but is too late.
The film ends with Burnside being assigned to Indonesia and another camp, denied the chance to rejoin his unit.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.