Three Days in the Life of Lt. Kravtsova (2012)

                   My latest treadmill viewing was the Amazon Prime series “Three Days in the Life of Lt. Kravtsova”.  It is four episodes totaling 184 minutes.  It comes from Star Media, the folks that brought you “Night Swallows” and “The Attackers”.  It covers three days in the life of a young officer on the Eastern Front in WWII. 

                   Lt. Kravtsova is green and this will be his first command.  On the trip to his platoon, he is informed that the average life expectancy for a lieutenant is three days.  His platoon is a motley group who are veterans.  They don’t have high hopes for their new leader.  He wants to do right and studies and memorizes his manual.  They proceed to tell him how it really works at the front.  He’s got some real learning to do and the learning curve is steep.  The platoon is manning a trench with a no man’s land of about fifty yards separating them from a German platoon.  It’s basically a live and let live situation, with occasional futile attacks.  Kravtsova is told to stay low because snipers only shoot at officers.  The men are skeptical of his leadership and when he leads an attack at first few follow him.  However, he is brave, if naïve, and gradually earns their respect.  Kravtsova is caught between the platoon and his superiors.  He has to follow orders from men who are clueless about the actual situation at the front.  When a major comes visit, he orders the sniping of a German getting water from a stream in no man’s land.  He is told this will break an unwritten rule, but cares not.  Meanwhile, romance is brewing between Kravtsova and a local farm girl.  This is building toward a suicide mission to take out a forward observation post.  The mission happens on the third day.

                   “Three Days…” is a typical Star Media production.  It has a low budget feel to it.  The trench set is fine, but small scale.  No man’s land looks like a field and the village looks like a village that was available for cheap.  The uniforms and weapons appear authentic.  The acting is actually better than you could hope for.  Alex Sparrow is well cast as Kravtsova.  He is a rising star in Russian television and music.  Kravtsova is naïve, but sincere, and he grows in the job.  His wooing of the girl (who is no beauty) is refreshingly chaste.  The platoon members have distinct personalities and you do care about their fates.  As is true for Russian WWII television series, the officer class is portrayed as mostly competent and empathetic toward the soldiers.  There is always a villain, however.

                   The weakness of the series is the confused nature of the combat.  Most of the tactics make no sense.  For instance, once they find out where the observation post is, it would have made more sense to bombard it (which they eventually do) rather than sending a squad.  The combat is visceral and one no man’s land confrontation is combat porn.  At least with the action scenes, you don’t have to rely on the subtitles.  Star Media is notorious for its sometimes laughable subtitling, but this series is the worst I’ve seen.  Plus, I often could not read them because they were set against a light background.  And often you would have to be a speed-reader to keep up.

                   In conclusion, I would recommend it for bingeing if you don’t require top flight entertainment.  It is short and the main character is appealing.  Just learn Russian first.

GRADE  =  C