Officers (1971)

            “Officers” is a Soviet war film about the friendship of two Red Army officers over decades. The film war hops from the Russian Civil War to the Chinese Civil War to the Spanish Civil War to the Great Patriotic War. It was directed by Vladimir Rogovoy.

             Alexei (Georgi Yumatov) and Ivan (Vassily Lanovoy) meet when Alexei and his wife arrive at a frontier post. They strike up a comradeship and capture a mujahideen leader. They rescue Alexei’s wife when she is kidnapped. After the original posting, the movie concentrates on Alexei and his family. Their paths cross when Alexei is a military adviser to Mao’s forces in the Chinese Civil War and Ivan is undercover with the communists. Alexei is a tanker in the Spanish Civil War. His son Yegor becomes a decorated war hero in WWII and Alexei is honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union. Years after, the two friends meet again and both are generals. 

            With a plot covering four wars and multi-generations, you would think the movie would be a miniseries. Would you believe the opposite. It clocks in at 1 hour and 36 minutes! I have found no mention that it was heavily edited. This seems odd because there are scenes that are truncated and hint at much better scenes that were cut. There are huge time jumps that leave you wondering what is happening to Alexei and Ivan in the interims. For instance, what are they doing during WWI? There is a scene in the Chinese Civil War, and none in the Great War? That seems very odd to me. Perhaps Soviet audiences did not want to be reminded of that war, but nothing also from the Russian Civil War? The movie needed to be twice as long to do justice to the pair. Or to do justice to Ivan. The movie is the story of two men, but it is really the story of Alexei with occasional appearances by Ivan.  

            The movie is very overrated. The acting is average. There is very little action and it lacks suspense. Frankly, I found it boring. I am a big fan of Soviet war movies, but I do not consider this one to be an exemplary one. The frustrating thing is that it could have been much better.

GRADE  =  D

THE 100 BEST WAR MOVIES: 16. Brest Fortress (2010)

 

                “The Brest Fortress” (“Fortress of War”) is a Russian film about the famous defense of Brest Fortress in the opening days of Operation Barbarossa in WWII.  It was directed by Alexander Kott and had strong input from the Brest Fortress Museum.  The film chronicles the defense of four separate strongholds within the fortress.  The movie was made “in memory of the fortress heroes”.

                The movie is told in flashback form based on the memories of a then teenage boy named Sasha (Alexey Kaposhov).  Sasha and his older brother are orphans who are in the Soviet Army and stationed at the fortress.  Besides the fortresses defenders, their families live within the walls.  Life is normal until the German invasion of the Soviet Union takes the fortress completely by surprise.  The first inkling that they are at war is when a savage air bombardment pummels the fortress.  Several buildings are blown up as people run around like chickens with their heads cut off.  Soon after, the German army arrives.   When the civilians attempt to flee, they are machine gunned.  The siege has begun and it will not be the cake walk the Germans anticipated.

                The movie concentrates on the defense of the four strongpoints and the commanders of each.  Political commissar Fomin (Pavel Derevyanko) is in charge of the Kholm Gate.  Regimental commander Gavrilov (Alexander Korshuvov) commands at the Eastern Fort and defense of the 9^th Frontier Outpost falls to Lt. Kizhavatov (Andrey Merzlikin).  Another force holds out in a barracks.   The Germans assault all four positions, leading to some intense combat.  The Germans use tanks, artillery, and flamethrowers to try to whittle down the defenders.  Through all this Sasha moves through the maelstrom seeking his girlfriend Anya and taking part in the fighting.  He serves as the framing device as he connects the isolated forces. 

 

ACTING:   A                

ACTION:   A+ (9/10) the only combat is the village assault

ACCURACY:     

PLOT:  A                

REALISM:   A

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A+

SCORE:   A

SCENE:  the German infantry and tank attack across the field

                I was not familiar with the Defense of Brest Fortress so the movie was not only entertaining, but educational.  I suppose every country its famous ill-fated siege.  Brest Fortress is the Russian equivalent of the Alamo.  Sieges are grist for war movies because of the potential for cinematic drama.  “Brest Fortress” maximizes this by tapping in to the personal elements of the story.  Not only is there the romance between Sasha and Anya, but there is another couple that is tragically impacted by the German assault.  The fact that families were caught in the siege adds a dimension that you don’t get in movies like “The Alamo”.  There is a strong human dimension to the film. Two themes are the brotherhood of the soldiers and their dying for what their country.

 The decision to concentrates on the leaders of the strongpoints was wise.  Each of these characters is distinctive and compelling.  The key to the movie is the Sasha character.  His arc is the glue tying together the various battle sites.  His quest to find his girl friend in the midst of the turmoil brings the audience into the story.  It helps that the acting is solid.  There is no scene chewing.  The dialogue is natural.  This is not a propaganda film.  The Germans are evil, but it is their actions, not the soldiers themselves.  There are no significant German characters in the film to speak of.

                Although the movie does a great job personalizing the siege, the movie is most memorable for its quantity and quality of combat.  The opening air bombardment is the best I have seen.  The first firefight sets the stage with slo-mo, graphic wounds, hand-to-hand, and extreme action.    It reminded me of the Korean style of movies like “Tae Guk Gi”, but it is also similar to the Russian film ”9^th  Company”.  There are several frenetic action scenes.  Unlike many war movies, the deaths are not ridiculously unrealistic.  And if you like explosions, this movie blows things up real good.  There is even a two ton kilogram bomb that results in a humongous explosion.  The German use of flamethrowers is not for the squeamish. 

                SPOILER ALERT:  The movie does a great job of retelling the Defense of the Brest Fortress.  This was the first encounter between the Soviets and the German invaders in Operation Barbarossa.  The movie clearly depicts the shameful lack of warning the Soviet defenders got when Stalin had knowledge that the invasion was coming.  The fortress had a garrison of 9,000 men and 300 families.  The air bombardment was devastating and was followed immediately by assault from 20,000 Germans.  The defenders were isolated into the four positions shown in the film.

THE 100 BEST WAR MOVIES: 29. The Dawns Here Are Quiet (1972)

 

 

                “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” is a Soviet film released in 1972. The title has a similar irony to “All Quiet on the Western Front”.  It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar (losing to “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”).  Director Stanislav Rostotskiy was determined to make a movie honoring females who served in the Great Patriotic War. A nurse helped him survive being run over by a tank in the war. The screenplay was based on the book by Boris Vasiliev. It was a bestseller in 1969. The book is considered one of the last “lieutenant prose”. These were books by lower-level officers who had served in the war. He wrote two other books highlighting patriotic contributions by female soldiers. Filming was done on the Karelian peninsula. It still showed signs of war damage and most of the crew had been in the war. The shoot was very difficult with cold temperatures and having to film in a swamp and forest. To better portray exhaustion, the actors put bricks in their backpacks.

              It is set in a village near Finland in 1942.  Sergeant Vaskov (Andrei Martynov) is in command of a unit that is noted for drunkenness and fraternizing with the village females.  His superior solves the problem by taking away his men and sending an anti-aircraft unit to replace them.  An all-female ack-ack unit!  Hey audience, Russian women could do men’s work. The girls laugh at Vaskov’s insistence on following regulations.  The village becomes like a girls summer camp.  They sleep together in a barracks.  They sing songs.  They dance with each other.  They take a steam bath together (with nudity, guys!).  But when there is an air raid, they kick ass.  They efficiently use their KPV multi-barreled heavy machine gun and shoot down a bomber.  Rita (Irina Shevchuk) coldly stitches a parachutist

            The first half of the film is entitled “In the Second Echelon”. There is a tonal shift from comedy to drama in the second half which was called “A Minor Local Fight” to stress that the movie is not about a significant incident. Lisa spots two German paratroopers in the woods and Vaskov decides to take her and four others to track them down before they can do whatever sabotage they are tasked for.  They cross a swamp and set up a strong defensive position to ambush the pair. Unfortunately, the pair turns out to be eight pairs.  Vaskov sends Lisa (Yelena Drapenko) back through the swamp for reinforcements. He and the remaining four will attempt to delay the Germans.  The movie now shifts to “who will survive?” mode. Get ready for some heart-tugging deaths.

ACTING:   B                 

ACTION:   C  (6/10)

ACCURACY:  N/A          

PLOT:  A-                     

REALISM:   A (there were female anti-aircaft batteries)          

CINEMATOGRAPHY:    A

SCORE:   C             

SCENE:  shooting down the German plane

QUOTE:  Vaskov:  War does not mean shooting better than the others. It means thinking better.

                “The Dawns Here Are Quiet” is not as renowned as other Soviet films like “Come and See” and “Ballad of a Soldier”.  The opening scenes seemed to confirm this.  Vaskov is a buffoon and the girls are giggly.  I was wondering if it was a comedy and whether it was truly a war movie.  Not that the first part isn’t entertaining.  The ladies are fetching and some are hot.  How often do you get a nude frolic in a steam bath in a war movie?  (A Soviet war movie at that.)  The director had to pursuade the actresses to perfom nude. He convinced them the scene would emphasize that when bullets hit them the bullets would be hitting female bodies. The same bodies that gave birth. Actually, only a war movie about the Red Army in WWII could realistically portray female soldiers like this movie.

  The air raid is a seriously good combat scene, but appeared to be an aberration in an otherwise fluffy movie.  Not that the movie was standard up to this point.  Early on a series of striking flashbacks kicks in.  The movie is crisply black and white, but the flashbacks are in color and slightly surreal.  They are used to give back-stories to the main characters.  For instance, Zhenya (Olga Ostroumova) had an affair with a married officer.  The cast is an ensemble and they are excellent, although only Ostroumova was famous at the time. By the end of the film, the five women who go on the mission have had their characters developed well.  It is a heterogeneous group.  There is the slut (Zhenya), the revenge-minded widow (Rita), the mousy (Lisa), the poetry lover (Galya), and the timid (Sonia).  More important is the character evolution of Vaskov.  He goes from a buffoon to a crafty leader.  He also shows commendable empathy for his charges in a big brotherly way.  And he turns out to be quite a warrior, as do the girls.  They participate in fire-fights using their Mosin Nagant rifles and captured German MP40s.

Director Rostotsky served in the army in WWII and went on to become a decorated film-maker after the war.  The movie is technically proficient.  The decision to show the flashbacks in a different style added pizazz to the movie.  The cinematography in the forest scenes is remarkable.  The biggest accolade I can bestow is that you do not realize without reflection how difficult it must have been to smoothly film the running about in the forest.  There is some POV and even some hand-held.  The lensing contributes to the fog of war aspect of forest fighting.  Rostotsky’s themes are apparent.  Female soldiers could be feminine and yet serve the Motherland effectively.  The movie is an homage to them.  They deserved it.

“The Dawns Here Are Quiet” is a must-see for anyone interested in Soviet war movies.  It belongs in the discussion about which is the best of this subgenre. It is no surprise it is beloved in Russia. It was at the top of the box office in 1973 (66 million Russians saw it) and polls have shown that it is the most popular film about WWII. This certainly can be credited to being very appealing to female viewers. But that is not because it pandered to women. It was based on actual heroism by females in the Red Army.

Air (2023)

 

            “Air” is a Russian film by Aleksei German, Jr. It is set in the Leningrad front in 1942. The movie focuses on a group of female fighter pilots that are integrated into a male unit. The main character is a young woman named Zhenya (Anastasia Talyzina) who is determined to be the best, but must overcome the deaths of other woman pilots.

            The film opens with German planes strafing a refugee column. It is very gritty and harsh because children are imperiled. However, it’s effective in establishing who the villains are.  In case a Russian audience needed to be reminded. At a Soviet air base, two male pilots talk about the female pilots who will soon be joining them. They should stick to giving birth and combing their hair. The movie will be tackling the sexism rampant in the Soviet air force in the war. When the women arrive, they are advized:  “You will cook for us, comfort us, do laundry, and sing songs, raise morale.”  One of the ladies responds: “Cook for yourself, fool.”  The women are led by a tough gal who stands up for them effectively. Gradually, they are given the chance to prove themselves and although their losses are high, they are a positive addition to the squadron. In a callback to the opening scene, they attack German planes strafing refugees. Later, they do the strafing as the Battle of Leningrad turns in favor of the Soviets.

Zhenya survives missions against superior German planes and pilots. The movie has several dog fights featuring frontal views of the pilots. It’s been a hundred years, but aviation combat films still rely on cinematography that goes back to “Hell’s Angels”. Speaking of which, “Air” uses actual aircraft instead of CGI. In another homage to air combat cliches, the enemy is personified by one German ace. Zhenya manages to shoot him down while transporting a baby given to her by a partisan! That’s something I had never seen before. Not satisfied with air combat, there is a scene where Zhenya crashes into a ground battle. Females can fight on their feet as well. And romance, too. Zhenya has an affair with her commanding officer. (No, it’s not a lesbian affair. Russian war movies have not caught up with western war movies.) By the time the movie is in 1944, Zhenya is one of the few females still alive from the first group.

“Air” is too long and yet it does not use the time to fully explore it’s theme of women earning the respect of their male peers. It leads with the women being disrespected by the male pilots, but then it drops the collective struggle to concentrate just on Zhenya. The dysfunction within the unit ends too quickly. Another weakness is the film does not make it clear how the women got better. Zhenya’s arc to the best female pilot is not supported by her evolution as a fighter pilot. She’s a survivor, rather than an ace

The film lacks action, but the dog fights are decently staged. The POV can be confusing even though that might actually be realistic. The film does not soar like it should, especially in comparison to movies like “Top Gun.” I do give it credit for being unpredictable as far as character deaths are concerned. Heavy losses in a fighter squadron is a trope of the subgenre. The difference here is some of the best characters are bumped off too early

The Great Patriotic War was set apart from the western front in WWII partly because of the role of females in the Soviet army. The Russians had female snipers and pilots that contributed greatly to the war effort. There have been movies made in tribute to them. “Air” introduced a new generation of Russians to female fighter pilots. The series “Night Swallows” and “The Attackers” are a better introduction, but they have even more soap operaish plotting

GRADE  =  C