Review of Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” 2023

I had high hopes for the “Napoleon” movie. There has in my mind been a lack of historical epics (not necessarily historical movies), the “Epic” genre seems to have faded a bit into the background.

It is understandable with the current climate of war in Europe again that it could not be glorifying Napoleon to any big extent but I was hoping for a character study into the complex character of Napoleon. However this movie is not a character study, instead it seems more like a parody on Napoleon and a likely commentary on present-day dictators and that power corrupts.

The movie had the “short” run time of 2 hours and 37 minutes and it is clear that compressing Napoleon’s entire life into that would be impossible. Even if cutting it down to the Siege of Toulon (1793) to Waterloo (1815) would mean a mere 7 minutes screen time per year if his life, so the movie would need a focus. In this case it is the romance between Napoleon and his first wife Josephine.

The underlying narrative of the movie is therefore that Josephine was Napoleon’s muse and source of inspiration. After the divorce his decision-making and luck went down hill dooming him to exile. That is an interesting take but ultimately did not work for me. The movie is rife with historical inaccuracies but that is the least of the issues with the movie. The movie never dares to present a balanced view on Napoleon and cannot be said to be close to an accurate biopic.

5 Good Foreign language WWII Movies Worth a Watch

Ever wondered how WWII looks in the movies of other countries. Here are 5 movie suggestions for non-English language.

Cinco de Mayo: The Battle – Mexican Movie 2013

The Battle of Pueblo (1862) is a battle between the French and Mexican armies and is a battle I had barely heard about so when I found a Mexican movie about it, I had to watch it hoping learn something. As I do not know enough details of the French Intervention in Mexico, I will not comment on historical accuracy in this review but focus on the movie itself.

Hacksaw Ridge – 2016 Movie

I waited a long time with watching the movie, after all it was a Mel Gibson movie and Mel Gibson does not have a great track record when it comes to historical movies. Do not get me wrong, Mel Gibson makes good movies but from a historical perspective, they are riddled with inaccuracies. But with Hacksaw Ridge I was pleasantly surprised. Read on as I explore the movie and a bit about history of the main protagonist medal of honor winner Desmond Doss.

Dunkirk – Movie – 2017

I came out of the cinema wanting so much more of that, the movie is so intense. 106 minutes is short for many movies of these days, but the way the movie deliver the story, it is works. It is short but you are never out of the battle so it feels much more intense and longer.

But when I sat down with a beer afterwards and thought about it, I could not really be sure why I liked it. This movie is very different from most war movies. It is not a horrifying gore fest or patriotic flag waving to celebrate and glorify the deeds of great men in history, Actually this movie is not really about the history of the evacuation or war. It is more about the experience, about invoking feelings, this movie drops you right in the war and with minimum dialog instead try to show you the horror and let you react to it. It is fast paced but sometimes very subtle become very quiet to let in sink in only to break it up again by screaming dive bombers.

 

It is well made and beautiful and with a bold artistic angle, but it is probably the angle that does not work for me, and prevents me from thinking it is an instant classic.

 

———————————————-Very Minor Spoiler  Alert—————————————————-

I realized from a narrative perspective does not work for me. I totally understand that this is a history movie and thus we all know approximately how it is going to go. There may be variations on who survives and who does not, but is maybe the only thing for us to find out, we already know the broad lines. It is a bit like Titanic, we know we are heading to disaster. I therefore understand it is more interesting to not tell it as a linear story but instead use multiple perspectives.

The movie has three perspectives: the soldier, the civilian sailor and the pilot. The movie try to tell each of their stories while slowly intertwining them, but it also uses different pacing. The soldier story is supposed to have a span of a week, the sea man a day and the pilot an hour which means bringing stories together with different pacing also mean seeing the same event multiple times from different angles. It makes the movie unneccessary hard to follow. Especially because if you blink at the beginning you will miss the text stating it at start of each story arch.

Another weird thing is, that I do not even remember a single name of any of the characters. it is not because they do not have names, it is because the movie wants to show rather than tell. There is very little conversation and very little connection with the characters. Because they are complete no-names with few revealed traits or character development, it makes it easier to feel it could be you and the movie therefore drops you in their boots. But if we do not care about the stories of the characters, we can better see the event as it unfolds.

In a way, it feels a bit like what I expect shell shock or traumatic experiences would feel like. I have never been at war and hope never to have to do so, but when I was a boy, I was caught up in a fire exercise that got out of hand and none had told us it was an exercise. In the stampede of panic, I with a small group 9-10 year olds got separated from the teacher and trapped in the end of a corridor, while the thick black smoke slowly advanced on us from the other end. We all thought we were going to die and I had one of these weird feelings, that I was kind of viewing everything from a 3rd person view. I can still recall me yelling to the others to drop to the floor below the smoke and I can see myself completely from the outside trying to bash in an armoured glass window until we gave up as the smoke was getting to near to us and simply put ourselves on the floor. I can hear myself thinking in my head: “this is it”. It was a strange out-of-body experience.

I kind of had the same feeling with this movie at times, I could have been any of those soldiers desperately trying to survive. The action seems real, the air attacks are sudden and sound effects make them terrifying but the amount of near-death experiences our soldier has seems get a bit repetitive. It is feels more like a horror movie, we lock all these soldiers in a location and ask: “who will survive?” At it seems like more people died than lived during the course of the movie. It did not sit well with my interpretation of history but of course our memory would also play tricks on us in stressful situations. The carnage and death could well be how some veterans, who were there, would remember it. It may be the closest some of us will come to a brief feeling of shell shock.

From the sea perspective we follow mr. Dawson who, when the call goes out for volunteers, steps forward and takes his son and his son’s best friend with him on his pleasure boat to go and help. I think from a narrative perspective this is the weakest of the three in the sense of immersion. Even though I really want it to be the strongest. As a civilian, I would have loved if the movie had explored their motivation more; would I have volunteered to go and help or simply handed over my vessel to the navy? Would I have risked my livelihood had I been a fisherman and tied to my vessel or would I have tried to protest it? But the movie has opted for minimum background for the characters because it is not about their stories but the event itself and that is cool, I am unsure who I am supposed to identify with. Mr. Dawson is duty bound and way too cool, so I guess I am supposed to identify with his son, but it never worked that well. The most touching but also totally out-of-place scene in the movie is the arrival of the small crafts, that is a total contrast to the bombing and strafing, the movie slows down, the music swells, and everyone stops to cheer. It is such a break from the pace of the rest of the movie that it feels clunky.

The air element although representing only about 1 hour over Dunkirk given the limited amounts of fuel is intense. That is about the best arial dogfighting ever put on-screen. It is beautifully shot and I really wanted to see more of it. Following the battle there was a lot of complaints about the lack of fighter cover over the beaches but actually RAF operated two patrols per squadron each day during day light hours (night fighting was not very well-developed).

The story telling this feels like a spiral where everyone ends up in the same place in the end. I did not like it but I can understand how that makes it more interesting to watch as it will keep surprises coming.

 

What I did not like about it

Even if it is a well crafted movie, it does have some annoyances and dashes some of my hopes for when I first heard about it. First of all that ticking clock and loud music on the sound track were getting on my nerves, no Germans are shown and the movie is depicted as a race against time and for survival but that ticking felt like trying to hammer it in with a sledge-hammer. Also there are a few such moments such as the arrival of the little ships which is over the top. The little ships are depicted to be the saviours of the day which hardly is true, only 5-10% of troops were evacuated by the small vessels, the mole at which the larger ships could come in was the main escape route.

I never liked the commander Bolton character. Many say it is a stirling acting performance, but I have very mixed feelings about creating composite or completely new characters to replace actual people. While I can understand the need for artistic freedom and it works well for Tommy, the soldier we follow, as he represents a lot of soldiers in the real event. I feel it is hard to do so with so pivotal roles as the land and sea commanders. Commander Bolton seems to be just standing at the mole as a captain on the helm offering stern advice and encouragement and showing the soldiers if officers can take it, so can they. But Bill Tennant whom the character is mostly based on, did so much more than being an immovable object in a sea of chaos. He and this team worked tirelessly to keep some kind of order while optimizing the lifting operation. I actually think the movie does not do him and his staff enough credit.

There was a lot of chaos, for all the death and destruction the movie dwells on, it is suprising to me it does not pick up on a lot of the things that actually happened. The town had been bombed to pieces, a thick black smoke from a burning oil tanks hung over the city almost like a beacon for friend and foe. the town actually looks way too neat. I was actually missing a lot on screen which could have added to the drama, for instance, the troops that came back into Dunkirk had no drinking water as the water supply had been cut off and so many of them took to looting wine cellars and so on, there was such a carnage, that it took quite some time to get things back in order. There are heart breaking stories of the tough decision not to evacuate the wounded as stretchers would take up too much space compared to fit people. In the movie it looks like wounded people are evacuated but in reality many were left behind with just about enough medical staff to them them, one per 10 or 20 wounded men. The staff had to draw lots on who got to stay behind and go into captivity with the wounded and who would get a chance to go on a boat. There are the heart breaking stories of troops fleeing into Dunkirk only to be swept up into units being sent back to hold the ever shrinking perimeter, some only holding out forced at gun point and a few stories of officers who had to shoot their own men to restore the fighting spirit. These are dilemmas and stories I would have loved to see be explored a bit.

 

What About the French?

I understand the survival perspective but I also miss a mentioning of the defence of the bridgehead. The bridgehead was continously defended and on a much larger perimeter than what is shown in the movie where we almost walk from the sandbag fortifications to the beach by turning a corner. The bridgehead was well defended and the French troops played an important role as more than 40.000 were left behind to cover the rear and casualties ran at 60.000. These are hardly mentioned in the movie and I therefore feel they are given great injustice. Even though the movie has a clear British perspective the evacuation of so many would not have been possible without the French army. I also feel the movie fails to mention the massacres of allied POWs but that would have failed and have vilified the Germans and taken focus away from the main narrative.

 

Do I like it?

Dunkirk is more of an experience than a movie. Nolan wants to put you there on the beach in 1940 with the men, the fear, carnage and shell shock. For 90 minutes you endure not really knowing what is next. I can understand if some people will not like it, I myself have a bit mixed feelings but the movie is crafted with such care, that it does shine.

For instance when the soldiers come home, embarrassed they have lost, they get served a cup of tea and there is an old man standing there saying: “well done, well done”. As they get on the train one says something like that old man did not even look us in the eyes. But in the movie he is shown to be blind and I cannot help to think perhaps it was the poison gas in the trenches of his generation. This is never explained but it is this attention to detail that makes me like it.

This movie is well crafted and has an interesting artistic direction, while it is generally true to the history behind it, I did not like the narrative and I feel a lot of history is left untold. It was not what I had expected but it is intense.

7/10

April 9th – Danish Movie – 2015

“Never again a April 9th”, the saying very much gripped by grand parents generation and referred to April 9th 1940. In the early hours of April 9th Denmark was attacked and occupied in a German blitzkrieg move. The sudden attack combined only with a token defence left the Danish people with a feeling that they had been betrayed by their politicians and let down by the army. Furthermore in the days following the 9th of April the Germans never disbanded the Danish army and left in place politicians and bewildered government willing to collaborate and Denmark was to some extent left to take care of itself but under German overall control. This was done because the Germans had no real interesting in Denmark. It was merely a stepping stone for a much larger prize, Norway.

The defence of Denmark has often been ridiculed and is subject to a number of myths both in Denmark and abroad where any fighting is often not even acknowledged at all. The Germans tried to put it up as a great propaganda piece that they were in fact invited to protect Denmark from British aggression. Denmark was a small country of little significance, an agricultural country with limited industrial capacity (weapons manufacturing capacity was mainly small arms). While it did control the straits to the Baltic sea Denmark’s size had meant that she relied on declared neutrality and a balanced diplomatic approach between the great powers to keep out of WWI. The same politics were pursued in the interwar period as it was believed that the same neutrality could be achieved again. With economic depression the defence budgets were slashed and slashed knowing that diplomacy was the better defence. A non-aggression pact was negotiated with Germany which further relaxed the focus on the armed forces until the Munich crisis. Following the Munich crisis Britain was approached and asked about their position should Denmark be invaded. The answer was negative, Britain did not believe in the practically of landing and supplying an oversea expeditionary force than close to German naval and air bases. Suddenly the armed forces were important again and Denmark rushed to expand the army and secure modern weapons. But it was too little, too late to discourage a German invasion.

It may be that the troops put up only brief resistance for a couple of hours and I totally understand this is best described as a sideshow to a sideshow. I know international viewers will ask what is two hours of fighting or a couple of dozen lives in a war of 6 years and millions of dead, it all seems very negligible. But with their lives on the line, they were no different from most other soldiers of WWII. They were let down by the politicians who had refused to modernize the army in the 1930s and furthermore refused to fully mobilize the army even in the face of invasion. The soldiers who found themselves defending Denmark on the 9th of April 1940 generally fought as well as could be expected but had no real chance. This movie tells their story which may be niche but no less of a tragedy for those who did not come home.

 

So It Begins

The movie opens with the proclamation by the Danish king given on the 9th of April to the Danish population following the invasion and a brief description of the Danish situation. We cut to April 8th and meet our main protagonist 2nd lieutenant Sand, who serves as second in command of a bicycle infantry platoon. All leave from the army has been cancelled and the troops are returning to garrisons. The air is thick with rumours of a potential German invasion and that is why all the conscripts are ordered back but they are told is merely an exercise. There are plenty of banter and the soldiers from the different regions of the country have their petty rivalry over cultural differences, differences there still exists to this day but will be completely hidden to the international viewer for whom it will seem simply boyish. It must be noted that the Danish army was mostly a training organisation with only a small core of professionals while the rest of it was made up of conscripts serving for up to a year. The tension mounts as the troops are handed live ammunition and ordered to bed fully dressed, they are still unaware and believe it is part of the training while their officers discuss what to do but ultimately have their hands tied by the politicians. The troops were denied to deploy forward to the prepared defensive positions as it was feared the Germans would take it as a provocation.

Suddenly the suspense is broken, the Germans cross the border and Denmark is at war. The movie follows the bicycle infantry platoon as they get on their heavy military bikes and go against their instincts by paddling towards the danger not away from it.

On the way down towards the border, they encounter the first troops falling back from the German forces and they decide to take up positions. This is probably the one of best moment of the movie, they can hear the German mechanized column approaching long before they can se it. Outnumbered and outgunned they have to put their faith in their outdated machine guns to halt the mechanized forces until the rest of the army can be mobilized. There are little heroism here, there are a scared group of young soldiers trying to do their duty.

 

The Movie

The rest of the movie follows the “fictive” platoon as they go through their first day in battle. When I say fictive it is because the platoon is not real but represents a number of different kinds of soldiers and people. The movie is relatively short at only 1½ hour but I think it works very well. It may at times feel more like a docudrama as there is not much in the way of character development.

Combat scenes are well crafted and feels very real, for instance the main protagonist never fires his gun but focuses on commanding as a lieutenant should do. It is clear that it is a very low-budget, in fact the budget about one-third of a game of Thrones episode but I think it does well with what it has to work with. It feels very authentic (except a small annoyance where the price of milk seems to be hugely inflated compared to actual 1940 prices).

The movie never falls for exaggerated heroism, nor for the ubiquitous pacifism one finds in most war movies. It tries to truthfully convey the day and the fight as it happened more or less and for that I think it does have its place.

 

Historical Comment – bicycle infantry

A lot of Danish movie critics saw the use of bicycles as the ultimate futility and while the Danish army was ill-equipped for fighting a modern war lacking both armour and anti-tank weapons, the bicyles I believe is not the main issue. mobility was a main concern of most armies of WWII and all armies experimented with bicycle infantry as a cheap way of adding extra mobility to the infantry especially recon. I have attached a picture below of the British commandos, a state-of-the-art unit landing on D-Day with their military issue bikes.

British Commandos landing on D-Day with bicycles for added mobility in order to reach Pegasus Bridge and the Paras faster

Bicycle infantry was a much cheaper alternative to traditional horse mounted infantry, see e.g. German use of horses in WWII: https://playinghistory.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/horse-powered-wwii-german-army-and-horses/

 

The Big Question

Ultimately the movie never really answers the big question, could Denmark have gained anything by resisting more fiercely. I honestly do not think so. Denmark would never have been able to resist a German invasion without foreign aid, its population and land was simply too small. The only possible source of aid would be Britain or France but for them to open a front in Denmark where everything would have to be transported across the North Sea while the Germans to drive up everything directly from their military depots seems to be a losing prospect. I therefore do not believe a longer fight would have gained much for Denmark. On the other hand a drawn out resistance would likely have resulted in a much more brutal occupation. Denmark in the end got off light of WWII, it may seem unfair to other warring nations and cowardice to try to avoid picking sides even after being occupied but I guess that is politics.

 

7/10 this movie is not about the politics or the big picture, it is about a group of conscript soldiers thrown into a war they never wanted. As a representation of Danish history, I think despite a few liberties, it is truthful enough to make for an interesting portrayal of a group of forgotten men in a sideshow of WWII. I recommend watching it.

Kongens Nei – The King’s Choice – 2016

The movie title of the latest Norwegian WWII movie “Kongens Nei”. It is a title that gives it all away, but the movie is much more appropriately titled “The king’s Choice” in English.

Find the trailer here:

I think it from the start is important to stress this is historic drama not a war movie. It is definitely not just another WWII movie about choosing difficult good over easy evil, it is much more than that. I admit I do not know the history of Norway during WWII too well, and it may at times be a slight problem in understanding what is happening, but in general the movie can be viewed without prior knowledge.

It takes place during the opening days of WWII in Norway. Norway had hoped that a neutral stance would keep the country out of the war. British naval control and no clear British interests in Norway would keep the country out of a war with Germany. However there were several factors that made Germany interested in better control with the country and it has primarily to do with iron ore. The Swedish iron ore which was mined in the Kiruna region, while technically in Sweden, because of the railroad systems it was faster to ship it via the Norwegian port of Narvik. This was a safe route through Norwegian and Danish neutral waters, it could therefore not be interrupted by the British navy. In December 1939 the Finnish Winter War broke out between the Soviet Union and Finland and the British had proposed to send an expeditionary corps to help the Finnish however this would have to travel through Sweden and would be able to interrupt ore supplies. Furthermore on February 16 British forces boarded the German supply ship Altmark in Norwegian territorial waters. While the Altmark was technically a warship as it was used for supplying warships at sea, it was still a breach of Norwegian neutrality by both sides. After that the Germans were afraid it could happen again and the allies might disrupt the ore trade and ignore the neutrality, so plans were drafted up for seizure of Norway to protect shipping.

This is where the movie opens with an explanation of the recent history related to the royal family of Norway. The king of Norway is special even among other kings in that when Norway because independent from Sweden in 1905 the people chose to become a constitutional monarchy and voted to invite prince Carl of Denmark to take the Norwegian throne. He took the name of Haakon VII to honour his new country. The monarchy in Norway is therefore special in that it was chosen by the people and has only a representative role. The king can appoint and dismiss governments and is in theory above the law but has very little real power. This is important background information and one theme that will follow on through the movie. Because the king was above politics, he has always been a unifying icon of the Norwegian people especially after his actions in April of 1940. The movie now cuts of out its stock footage and fast forwards to the 8^th of April 1940. Norway is peaceful and we get the first look at an aging king with severe back problems. He is clearly more preoccupied with this grand children than politics (which he wants to stay clear of). While it is reported that British warships have again breached Norwegian territorial waters to mine the shipping lanes for iron ore, at the same time intelligence reports come in that some 50-100 ships  have left German for parts unknown but likely Norway, no one takes it too seriously. The government is still debating believing there is a chance to keep Norway out of the war but refuse to fully mobilize the army as that could be seen as a provocation. The German invasion puts the government and royal family on a wild run, they are chased by the Germans and form the core of the movie.

The movie itself is very straight forward, while it is good and reasonably paced, it can drag a bit at times. It is very enjoyable and well done even if a bit in the low end of the budget. Danish actor Jesper Christensen is very believable is king Haakon VII. The king and the crown prince Olav have an interesting collaboration/conflict throughout the movie with the king being what appears to be a timid idealist and the crown prince the passionate fighter but in the end comes to an interesting solution in solving the king’s choice as to either surrender Norway or resist the invaders.

One of the true highlights of the movie is the tense waiting when unknown enemy warships are moving up the Oslo fjord and the conscript soldiers on the coastal fort anxiously wait to see if the order to fire will come through or who the enemy even is. War had not been declared but no orders came from the government and thus it was on the battery commandant’s order that fire was given.

The battle scenes seem realistic and well done. An interesting side note, being a neutral country the Norwegian army did not possess offensive weapons like hand grenades and submachine guns which could be used for assaulting enemy trenches. The Norwegian army focused only on defense with rifles and machine guns and even then most of the equipment was outdated.

On the slightly negative side one of small problems with the movie is understanding why the king is so important, the reasons for fleeing is never fully explained as the king holds little decision power. The movie really tries to give a good overview of the early days of the invasion of Norway by following the king but it never really gives us his full perspective and thoughts which would have been very interesting.

I think the movie suffers from trying to tell too many things and too many perspectives, for instance covering also the German diplomat to Norway, doctor Bräuer. Th Bräuer side story is actually a bit annoying as I feel it adds very little to the overall story. It feels like an attempt to legitimize that not all Germans were bloodthirsty maniacs but still it does not seem necessary. As the movie have a quite some of side stories and locations, it is cut with clear black screens with text explaining location and time of day, this is somewhat emersion breaking.  It feels like the movie does not trust the viewer to be able to follow. All I really wanted to have is a map to understand the route they took or the choices they made. As a non-Norwegian I do not know the locations of towns like Hamar or Elverum by heart. Another Norwegian thing that is not very well explained is Quisling, never in the movie does it say he is the party boss of the Norwegian version of the Nazi party and thus it does appear a little strange that he stages a coup in the wake of the invasion unless you have prior knowledge.

The only real problem with the movie I have, is that the very question of the movie is not really answered nor do we get much material to work with. Of course I do not understand particular Norwegian sensitivities but was there a real choice? Even more interesting, did it make any sense to continue throwing in lives in what appears to be a desperate struggle? The king’s no as the original title is called in Norwegian never feels like a definitive NO! Still it is a decent movie about a little known event in history and I shall give it:

6/10 I was entertained but tempted enough to look at my phone from time to time to see how much longer it would last.

A question for my readers:

I believe in the first shot with the German paratroopers hoisting the flag, are they still wearing their jump smocks? Would that be historically accurate to still wear the jump smock? I would have thought the cloth cover, that went over the webbing to prevent it from flapping around, and thus it would be removed after completing the jump for easy pouch access. It looks to me like the two guys walking across the yard is still wearing them.

Battalion (2015) – Russian Movie about Battalion of Death

I admit that my knowledge of Russian history is very poor and thus I love digging up historical movies set in Russian to use as a jump off point to go into depth. Russian movies and other Eastern European movies involving Russia are very different to Hollywood and often have a bit darker and less heroic and often realistic atmosphere which is something I enjoy. “The Sovereign’s Servant” (Sluga Gosudarev) and “Alexander: The Warrior Saint” (Aleksandr Nevskaya bitva) are interesting for having the Swedes as antagonists, “The Star” (Zvezda) for some realistic WWII action and “Come and See” (Idi i smotri) shows a brutality to WWII seldom seen in Western movies to name just a few. To name a few Eastern movies often showing the Russians are the antagonists “Battle of Warsaw 1920” and “1944 Forced to Fight” deserve mention.

I must honestly admit I did not know what to expect. I only read about the movie on Amazon while making another purchause and added to my basket. So all I knew was that it was about the time when the Russian army disolved in 1917 during World War 1 and so I actually failed to connect the dots to the Women’s battalions until 10 minutes into the movie but that was really a pleasant surprise because that is a story worth telling.

 

The Battalions of Death

In 1917 World War 1 has raged for almost 3 years and Russia had seen massive losses and with no end of hostilities in sight the soldiers were demoralised and at the home front riots broke out in Petrograd (the capital) in March. In the February Revolution (so-called because the Russians still used the Julian calendar) the Czar was overthrown and a provisional government established but all of this was in the middle of the war and war with the Germans were still not concluded. In the revolutionary turmoil, the frontline units fell apart and soldiers often refused to attack. In an attempt to avoid losing the war, it was decided to raise new shock units of patriotic volunteers but also create women’s battalions, the women was an untapped resource of man power but more importantly it was hoped they by service in the frontline could shame the men into action.

 

Maria Bochkareva

I would have thought the main character of any movie about Women’s Battalions would centre on their legendary leader Maria Bochkareva but that is actually not the case. However Maria Bochkareva is larger than life and does deserve some mentioning here. She was married away at the age of 15 but when her husband turned abusive she ran away. After a confused life including being forced to work in a brothel by one employer who had promised her a servant job, she began a new relationship with one of the local men but when he turned violent, she ran off again.

When World War 1 hit, she returned home and managed to attach herself to the 25th Tomsk Reserve Battalion by permission of the Czar. Although rediculed she proved herself in combat earning 3 decorations for bravery while being wounded twice in the process. In 1917 she was asked to raise and command a women’s battalion and that is where we meet her in the movie. However the story does not end there, she would flee Russia after the second revolution and end up meeting both King George of Great Britain and US president Wilson before returning to Russia in an attempt to aid the White Army fighting the Soviets and ultimately being captured and executed.

The movie does try to tell her story as a side story but for instance the encounter with her former husband seemed forced and out of place as we have gotten no background story up until then.

 

Movie Layout

The movie is basically split into two parts: boot camp and at the front. Boot camp is cliche and everything has more or less been seen before. It is used as a way to introduce different characters which I must admit I never really got to care about. There was of course the gentle giant and the thinker and the rich vs poor background fighting, but nothing really new, which is sad seeing that it is both Russian and about women.

I know it could be argued that it is about all the prejudice that women faced fighting for Russia, but I am sure that could have been said about any militia force as most of it is not about women in the army but about being the newcomers. But ok spolier, she was pregnant, you should have guessed first time she said she was dizzy. But that is something that is special for women.

Maria drove her battaltion hard and during training 5 of 7 dropped out, this is hardly displayed in the movie except in one of the opening scenes where some of the foppish women flee in terror realizing they are going to lose their hair to the latest military fashion but I felt there is some backdrop that was missed out.

I have always been puzzled by the name, who would volunteer for a unit called Battalion of Death, it indicate to me that most of these women would be suicide candidates having lost men or husbands in the war already. I would personally think most soldiers would like to know there was a chance to get out of there alive even when missions are very dangerous. The movie to me fails to answer the question in full and thus must admit fail in the first part of setting the historical and human background for volunteering to go to war as a Russian woman of 1917.

 

The movie was half-decent until they got into the trenches at which point, it broke the immersion completely for me. It was riddled with cliches and weird stuff that made no sense. If there is something I hate, it is when characters makes no sense. I like fantasy movies with magic as long as it is consistent and characters make sense. When the answer to the being attacked is to not fire your machine gun but fixing bayonets and get out of your trenches, the movie begs the question, why did anyone bother digging trenches? The movie clearly showed that trenches are not needed anyway, the soldiers would casually stroll into no-man’s land to pick flowers. Maybe it is some symbolism of losing the innocence but that really failed on me. By the way a white flag of truce should be respected, so I guess you deserved to get it, I would probably have insisted they returned to their trenches, the spy story did not work on me either but maybe it is a predecessor to SMERSH. I also almost laughed when the battalion commander went something like: “they fear us, now is the perfect time to attack”. It was cliche and comical.

 

I fear that Russian movies have started looking too much to Hollywood in trying to decipher what makes them great and in the process has lost some of its original Russian touch and replaced it with cliches for the movie has lots of them:

“I throw myself on handgranade to save my buddies”, “the gentle giant turned mad hero to protect her own”, “battalion join to go and protest arrest of beloved officer and get their will” and “time to stop and pray in the face of certain death” to name a few. It unfortunately is very predictable and tend to take me out of the movie which subtract from my overall experience but that is fairly minor compared to some of the weird combat stuff that really breaks the immersion for me.

The fighting itself looks weird. I know the trench construction on the Eastern front was much less elaborate than on the Western but it still does not seem to make much sense. The front line is so peaceful the girls go and pick flowers in no-man´s land and then the enemy charges us we prefer to counter charge them to meet them in the middle. The trenches are only for shelter when not fighting and by the way no need to leave sentries. Please do not get me started on the gas warfare and setting fire to straw behind your own unit to illuminate the target during a night attack does not work, it would probably just highlight your silouettes against it. The Soviets tried at the Battle of Seelow Heights with projectors and that did not work too well.

I could probably go on for a while but on a more interesting note a Madsen machine gun makes it appearance in the German trench but that ultimately does not save the movie.

 

I did finish it but I was bored. It is an interesting story told in an uninteresting way. I never got to know the characters and I never really got a reason to care. The battaltion went to its death and I ended up almost cheering it was over. It is sad because it does tell an interesting story that should not be forgotten but its background felt more like excuse to make a different war movie rather than retelling the true history.

3/10

Saints and Soldiers – The Void – Historical Comments

Another straight to DVD movie with a dubious timing for release made this look like a cheap and cheesy exploitation of the release of the block buster Fury and it probably was related. In a way I find it amusing but also sad that most block buster movies will create a storm of B movies trying to capitalize on the type that they stir up.

When the WWII tank movie “Fury” came out another tank B movie was released called “Ardennes Fury” clearly intend to simply make money off the hype of WWII tanks and when I saw the trailer of “Saints and Soldiers – The Void”, I thought it was exactly the same was the case with this movie except they would be driving M18 tank destroyers instead of M4 Sherman tanks but for the rest of it being cliche with the addition of the racial implications and prejudices of a segregated US army.

It really suffers from many of the cliches surrounding war movies, the white guy, who refuses to take orders from black ranking guy but ending up acknowledging and praising him. But it seems like he is a one off kind of guy which seems really wrong considering the mentality of 1940s USA. The addition of a British officer into the mix seems a bit forced but acts as a device for asking all the questions for the viewer about a segregated America but it does seem odd. His lust for vengeance against the German officer is never truly developed and thus seems like a hopeless side plot that was cut short by editing and pointless. And of course the radios fail to leave them on their own and this is where I feel the budget does hurt the movie. The Void is an interesting concept, it is not fictional at all, the US forces did advance rapidly into Germany along the main roads which led enemy units trapped in the rear and would have to be cleaned out, but the whole we cannot get reinforcements right now and leave the heroes on their own feel like cheap tricks to avoid escalating the battle and thus the budget.

I do not think the movie itself was anything special but I do think it is worth watching but do not expect something mind blowing however I like that the movie touches upon a number of topics even though it never dare go into details. To the casual viewer many of these things may appear odd or are completely missed but I thought it was fun to comment on from a historical point of view.

 

—————- SPOILER ALERT ————–

These are some of the things that made it into the movie that I really found noteworthy.

The main protagonist is a black sergeant from an African-American tank destroyer battalion, the 827th. It was activated in 1942 but did not see action until end of 1944 where its combat record was stained by disciplinary problems which led to the unit being split up and their tank destroyers handed out as replacements to other units.

In the movie it is handed over to a white anti-tank unit which had not previously been mechanized and handed tank destroyers but instead used to man anti-tank guns. This is very much likely although I cannot comment on the M18 of the 827th battalion specifically. The US tank destroyer doctrine did see the tank destroyer arm armed mainly with anti-tank guns in the beginning of the war where they would move out to counter enemy armoured spearheads and set up ambushes. It was however found that a towed anti-tank gun was much slower and more impractical to set up and during the war many units were upgraded with mechanised tank destroyers. The M10/M18/M36 tank destroyers were fully mechanized and built for speed rather than being armoured. They were meant to use their speed to deploy into an ambush and evade enemy return fire. This would however require picking the best positions and thus sending the two M18s forward alone without any recon or infantry seems a bit of cheap plot writing. this would mean that they would have ditched their normal integral support units as well as having them act as tanks. While tank destroyers operating as tanks was common as the number of German tanks were dvindling during the war the plot could happen but to clean out territory between main roads would still require infantry especially knowing they are going into the void where a single enemy soldier with a panzerfaust could do some serious damage. Furthermore the inability to recall the general using radios is just plain silly, I am pretty sure the general’s jeep would be equipped with a radio and thus having discovered the enemy ambush would simply have called him back. It feels like an excuse to drive the plot.

I really like how in this movie not every German tank is a Tiger tank. The enemy tanks in this movie are actually Panzer IIIs, by this point in time outdated and withdrawn from frontline duty and religated to training vehicles but in the last days of the Thrid Reich many of these were brought out of the schools to form ad-hoc units. This is underpinned by the main antagonist is a retired panzer teacher. This sits very well with the story that many of these schools would march off to battle with whether was left of training vehicles.

Our hero having found the 827th effectively disbanded have been reassigned. This seems unlikely but the plot has him moved to the supply troops of Red Ball Express to underline the importance of black troops in winning the war in a less glamourous role of driving supplies.

As the allies advanced away from the beaches in Normandy their supply lines became long and strained. Every bullet, boot, shell, meal and spare part and fuel had to be trucked across France and forward to the troops in Germany. The railroad networks in France had been crippled by bombing to deny it to the Germans but it also means that supplies had to be trucked. The solution because known as the Red Ball Express which operated some 6000 trucks along roads closed for other traffic one going to and one going from the beaches. Logistics and supply were major challenges facing allied forces during the war, a division easily used 750 tonnes of supplies per day, with 28 divisions deployed in 1944 the offensives would have grinded to a halt from the lack of supplies. The Red Ball Express delivered some 12500 tonnes of supplies per day alone and while even this effort was not enough to meet the demands of a hungry warmachine, it definately helped. Some 75% of the drivers were African-Americans.

When getting into an argument, Owens defends the position and use of black soldiers refering to his father as one of the black soldiers serving in WWI but due to racial injustice was never recognised for their services by the US. The story he mentions is someewhat linked to that of the decorated veteran Eugene Bullard who served in the French army as an American volunteer in WWI from 1914. When the US entered the war in 1917, Eugene asked for transfer to the US forces but was turned down by the US medical board for being black and thus unfit for a combat role. Owens story does however depart from that with the death of his father by a lynch mob something which is generally forgotten today, but in 1918 when returning black soldiers demanded more civil rights some of them were lynched, a total of 49 blacks were lynched that year, 10 of them known to be WWI veterans.

So all these small details are all brimming with history and I think that helps raising this movie out of a generic low budget war movie to actually taking on a style of its own, it is the kind of details that I really enjoy and that makes me appreciate the movie even if they forgot about the backblast of a panzerfaust should probably have injured the firer in the last combat scene but they do joke with it at the end.

 

 

1864 The Battle For Europe – the Movie – Review

Considering the production history I did simply not think that this movie could be any worse than the TV-series, I was wrong, dead wrong. This is probably the worst historical movie I am going to review ever.

 

I do not even know where to start with my hate. This is a movie re-edit of the TV-series “1864” which was aired across Europe. It sparked a huge debate in Denmark for its wide historical inaccuracies, use of magic in a historical movie, banalities in the plot, pointless sidestories leading nowhere, silly cutting back and forth to modern day in order to politicise, helpless voice overs telling the viewer how to think and feel instead of showing and clear bias and modern moral ethics applied to 19th century characters. I understand the series was moderately popular in UK where most of the viewers I would assume would know nothing of the war of 1864 but in Denmark it was hugely critised. With so much debate in Denmark to learn from, I thought cutting an 8 hour long TV series to a 2 hour movie could perhaps still redeem it. There were many things in the TV series I did not like but I did have some good features as well. But clearly this cut has not given it any redeeming values, I do think it is because 2 hours is too short, a 3-3½ hour movie would probably have solved many of my problems with the movie. It must be said that the TV series was beautifully shot and the characters were generally interesting although almost carricated and warped ro fit modern stereotypes and thus as a time piece it utterly failed.

I feel the TV series was way too slow paced in the beginning and too fast paced in the end and generally cliche filled and had a touch of magic which really made it depart from much of its historical background. I was almost expecting the Baelrog to make an appearence and making the ordience understand that Danish nationalism was the true cause of their downfall.

I really wanted to think the movie could make it, it would cut out the magic and all the stupid side plots. The switching between 1864 and a present day narrator who had lost a brother in Afghanistan due to insensitive or nationalistic politicians sending boys off to fight for dubious causes really did not work and I thought that was going to disappear as well. So far so good….

 

Battle for Europe!

The Danish title is “Brothers in War” which I feel is much more fitting but the movie is titled Battle for Europe for the international market and makes a grand statement that the war was a precursor for World War I and this war changed Europe forever. That really pisses me off because that is twisting the truth in order to raise sales numbers. In what way is the battle over Southern Jutland anywhere near the battle for Europe? It is not that it is unimportant for Danish history nor that this was maybe the first attempt anyone had of stopping Prussian militarism but really how about the Austro-Prussian war or Franco-Prussian war which both followed within 6 years, now would any of these empires not have had a better chance than Denmark to stop the Prussians?

Unfortunately it is not a movie about the war at all, while there is fighting, there is no context or explanations as to what or why things are happening in the movie. There is no discussion of why the war started, any motivation for fighting the war and why the Prussians were even involved in an uprising in Denmark. There are two main battles portrayed and the retreat from the exposed positions at Dannevirke but there is no explanation and had I not studied Danish history it would make no sense at all. First we see the Danes beat off the Germans at Mysunde, next the Danes flee their forts in a chaotic rout because an officer said we need to retreat. But why oh why, please explain this otherwise it seems like somebody simply lost his head and decided to go lose the war singlehandedly, a David Lynch movie makes more sense than this nonsense. I mean even worse is the cutting at the main battle of the war in the middle when the two armies finally charged at each other. To me it would look almost like a stalemate and then cut to a field hospital scene with one of our recovering heroes, who won the battle, what is the time frame? The cut again and the girl have married someone else, no explanation or attraction this other character. I know in the series it is well explained but this movie cannot stand alone. The characters are one dimensional to an extent that I do not care about any of them, they are not people they are more like personification of human traits or faults and given a human body to walk around. There is no real character development either, again the TV series has it but the movie does not and thus miss out greatly. When Erasmus is killed the main character lets out a NOOOO which would have made Darth Vader proud, I felt nothing, but I never made a connection with the character. Erasmus was merely the stereotype “gentle giant turned killing machine against desperate odds and end up getting cowardly shot by opponents unwilling/unable to face him in close combat”.

Even worse, with all the possibilities to take in lessons from the TV-series and critical response, there are still plently of loose ends from things being cut from the TV series, even more things have been cut in half to save time but end up creating more loose ends.

I could perhaps recommend the TV series if you understand that you are in the fantasy realm of claiming to be history but the movie is horrendous.

1/10 I want my money back!