Father of a Soldier (1965)

 

            The Soviet Union may have been a godless, communist country, but it sure made some good WWII movies.  Surprisingly, even under Stalin, most Soviet war movies were not overtly propagandistic.  While American war films of the 1950s treated WWII as a “good war” against the loathsome Axis, Soviet films tended to examine the effect of the war on the public.  Most Soviet movies did not treat the Great Patriotic War as glorious.  The plots tended to focus on individuals, not battles.  Nazi villains were rare.  Instead, the war was the villain.  This is best exemplified by Alyosha’s trip to see his mother I  “Ballad of a Soldier”.  His journey takes so long that he has only a brief embrace before he has to turn around.  Unlike American films, the officer corps was always depicted in a positive manner.  And the units had no dysfunction.  Heroes and heroines triumphed over the hardships thrown at them by the war.  Audiences were given films about people like them who had dealt nobly with their situations.  Unlike Americans, the Russian people had been more directly impacted by the conflict and the movies reflected that.

  There were several outstanding Soviet films that got attention in the West.  Films like “Ballad of a Soldier”, “Ivan's Childhood”, “The Cranes Are Flying”, and “Come and See” are among the best WWII movies.  When Khrushchev began de-Stalinization, the Khrushchev Thaw gave directors and screen writers more freedom from censorship.  Although “Father of a Soldier” came out during the thaw, it is comfortably in the Stalin era personal films.  It was directed by Revaz Chkheidze and was a Georgian production.  It stars a popular Georgian theatrical performer. 

            The movie begins about a year after the German invasion.  The father (Sergo Zakariadze, Blucher in “Waterloo”) is a peasant farmer who decides to go visit his wounded son in a hospital far from home.  He gets his marching orders from his wife.  He stoically accepts her nagging.  The whole village comes out to see him off.  His trek starts in a ramshackle truck and he continues in a cart, hopping a train, and finally, walking.  When he reaches the hospital days later, he is told that his son has been released back to his unit.  Undeterred, he does not return home.  Instead, he enlists in the army after convincing a colonel that he will be a committed soldier, despite his age.  He becomes a good soldier, but never forgets he’s a farmer.  In one scene, he stops a Russian tank from trampling a vineyard.  The movie tracks the father and his mates as they turn the tide against the Germans and make the long march to Berlin.  His odyssey ends in the battered German capital where he finally makes contact with his tanker son.  It is a poignant rendezvous.  The movie is marked by whimsical moments, but it occasionally reminds its audience that the war could be heartbreaking.

            “Father of a Soldier” is an entertaining Soviet war film that carries on the tradition of chronicling the impact of the war on one common person.  Sergo Zakariadze is outstanding as the father.  He is creates the archetypical elderly peasant turned soldier.    The movie bears some resemblance to “Ballad of a Soldier” because it takes an episodic look at one man’s journey.  In this case, the main character is heading toward the front lines to see his son, instead of away to see his mother.  Both have a resilient hero.  What makes “Father of a Soldier” unique is the father becomes a soldier.  He does not stay behind the lines.  The second half takes the audience from the depths of Operation Barbarossa to the triumphs of the Battle of Berlin.  And this is the only problem with the screenplay.  It covers too vast a time frame.  In order to get the father to Hitler’s capital, the father’s quest is sidelined in favor of battles and soldier camaraderie.  One of the battles features a tank assault.  In another scene, the unit is freezing in a trench in the dead of winter and they are serenaded by a military band.  It strains credulity that the father would not have run across his son in three years.  But this was necessary for the greater purpose of framing the quest around the successful war effort.

            “Father of a Soldier” is not in the front rank of Soviet war movies.  However, it’s a good one and an important part of the canon.  I wouldn’t start with it, but it is a must-see if you plan to explore the subgenre of Soviet war films.

GRADE  =  B