I just watched this again and though I don't know any Russian, you can hear the sounds of war. The young girl with a letter becomes a tearful old woman. A building with a couple on a bench becomes a troop train taking the men to war and the women watching them leave. Birds become war planes and you can hear the sounds of war in the audio played. At the end you see a soldier returning home to a child looking out the window with a wife/mom and the date is 1945. The war is over.
I think this girl probably is more genius than any of us really know. To mix the art, with the music and sounds and the messages in the art with History, was probably a huge impact. It makes me wish I understood it even more.
I caught the monument before and got the symbolism of that and the people crying, but I think it is much deeper.
Interesting that the music at the end was Metalicca's "Nothing Else Matters." If anyone speaks Russian what did the message in the sand at the end say?
I believe the Ukranian people of Russia suffered the greatest losses in WWII, but I could be wrong about that. Not really a Russian History expert by any wild stretch. Just something that is in the back of my mind.