In Prisoner of the Mountains, the songs and whistling made the film similar to other war films. The whistling as the Russian soldiers were pictured in their camp and riding in their tanks was a classic depiction of soldiers in general. The whistling reminded me of ww1 and ww2 films as the soldiers usually whistled during the downtime of war. Similarly, the children singing as the film overviewed the mountain village. The song makes the village seem innocent with the young voices of the children singing. I pictured the village as more of a small, innocent community through these songs. These aspects gave the film commonality to other war films.

With the songs and whistling in the film, we would expect a common ending to a prisoner of war film. Either the prisoners would break out of the captivity or they would make friends with the people of the mountain village. Although, this film gave a Russian twist by having an unexpected ending in fairly traditional scenery, music, and sound of a war story. I did not expect Abdul to let Vanya go at the end of the film and immediately after Russian helicopters appear to go destroy the mountain village. Overall, I enjoyed the film as a whole because of the unexpected ending and the mix of themes within the war story.