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Post by vsahdneek on Mar 24, 2009 16:51:11 GMT -5
Greetings Comrades!
I see we have some threads that deal with specific movies, but I just started this one as a generic thread so that anyone can hop in without thinking it is only about the one movie... such an obvious idea it is scary! LOL!
Anywho, I would like to start off by encouraging anyone who has seen decent quality movies re/ the Eastern front to post the titles of what they have seen and if a rare one, where they got a copy, or where they were able to see it or rent it.... perspective not important here, as I have seen various movies from Axis, Finn, and RKKA perspectives that were all great.
So here goes! my list includes:
Cross of Iron Ambush! Enemy at the Gates Star The North Star Stalingrad (Color) Stalingrad (B+W. also called "Dogs, do you want to live forever?") Attack and Retreat The Winter War Come and See
and then there are lotsa great original films you can get from International Historic Films and Belle and Blade (not plugging them here, just relating where I found them! I bought them!)
Khakov The Baltic Tragedy Katyn Massacre Der Frontschau Stalingrad (a version made by Stalin's propaganda unit)
this is only a partial list to be sure, but now I have to go dig in my shelves beyond what my memory serves. If you want me to describe any of the ones I have listed here, please do.
So, list away! Discussion of individual movies... by all means! and whether the soldats depicted are accurate or inaccurate, by all means!
Why do this? I have gobs of movies from other periods and theaters of war in WW2, but finding good Eastern Front movies can be a bit harder... so if we all pool our lists we can help each other with our collections!
Vlad
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Post by vsahdneek on Mar 31, 2009 2:32:34 GMT -5
Hi Jay!
what a small world! Vlad is my impression name for the RKKA, but I also do Italian reenacting with the 29th SS as Bernardo! LOL! Funny, isn't it? By all means, list your Ostfront movies here for all to see! I still do the Italian thing most of the time, but we are running an Ostfront event at Odessa this year and so I thought I would learn about the RKKA so we could make the event better and more realistic. So how is Finnish going for you? I am becoming an associate member of an RKKA unit here in the NE so I can do that impression when the Italians cannot attend an event for whatever reason. I still do German occaissionally too.
Vlad/Bernardo/Bernhardt
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Post by sapper44 on Apr 3, 2009 15:13:40 GMT -5
IMA has a good listing of some eastern front movies right now. www.ima-usa.comChristian
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Post by vsahdneek on May 19, 2009 5:23:44 GMT -5
Just saw "Siberiade"
very good movie about one small village in Siberia and several generations of townspeople and how their lives were effected by ww1, the revolution, ww2, and modern life and industry
Vlad
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Post by velodya on Jun 13, 2009 10:08:15 GMT -5
I found "Enemy at the Gates" amusing, but not accurate. Firstly, Zaitsev was a clerk in the Navy who transferred to the Red Army, not some wide-eyed conscript straight from the Urals. Secondly, we know practically everything in the movie was added to make it entertaining.
On a third note, I gather GPW veterans became very angry when it was released in Russia. They felt it was a completely absurd portrayal (particularly NKVD gunning down retreating troops) and demanded it be banned. It wasn't, but they came close.
I'll still watch it from time to time, but its important to remember that it isn't real, its Hollywood.
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Post by dixieflyer on Jun 13, 2009 20:43:13 GMT -5
Enemy at the Gates really is pretty horrible, especially from the Russian viewpoint. As I saw it written on another site,"How would you like it if we Russians made a movie about Bastogne, and when it was over, all the GI's went out in the street to do the twist to an Elvis song". That's pretty much how Hollywood treated it. FWIW, the book the movie was supposed to be based on, War of the Rats, is really pretty good.
Right now I like "Nameless Eminence" as a movie.
Yuri
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Post by velodya on Jun 13, 2009 21:04:12 GMT -5
LMAO!
Elvis would be a bit of an anachronism.
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Post by vsahdneek on Jun 13, 2009 23:00:12 GMT -5
I liked "Enema for Bill Gates" as a piece of cinema, but you are right, it is not an accurate movie... they did use the NKVD as 'blocking forces' to keep other troops from retreating, but who knows if troops were used in such a cavalier way in Stalingrad or panicked that badly.. I know the movie Stalin made about the conflict is entirely different.
I thought the use of mainly British actors for the Russians was kinda odd as well... with the accents it made me think the Germans had succeeded with "Operation Sealion" and were fighting house to house in LONDON!!!
The fighting other than sniper on sniper was odd, too... human wave tactics in the city, partisans/militia fighting from trenches, lotsa politruk activity.... not one T34... kinda odd. Oh, and German officers taking showers in full view of the front... what BS... I thought it was well done as a piece of cinema, but now that I do RKKA it is almost comedic in its schlocky innaccuracies....esp the ending... almost like a duel in the old west. I think in reality Koenig shot one of Zeitzev's cohorts and then in turn got picked off by Zeitzev but not in the poseur manner in which the movie portrayed it.
Plus Zeitzev is not a pretty boy like Jude Law. And the other great failing of the movie is that you didn't get to see Rachel Weisz nekked!!! LOL!
Vlad
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Post by dixieflyer on Jun 14, 2009 11:22:07 GMT -5
LMAO! Elvis would be a bit of an anachronism. Exactly, that is one of the many things pointed out by the Russians about Enemy at the Gates, the song at the end post-dated WWII by a number of years. I can't find the article on it now, it was over at the Russian Battlefield site. (Which is a great site for primary sources BTW, bookmark it now if you don't already have it in your favorites.) Yuri
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Post by dixieflyer on Jun 14, 2009 11:24:09 GMT -5
Vlad, get the novel "War of the Rats". It is the book that the movie is supposed to be based on. If they had filmed the movie as per the book, it would have turned out much, much better.
Yuri
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Post by velodya on Jun 14, 2009 18:11:29 GMT -5
Vlad has a big point about the accents. I almost died of laughter when a female Russian soldier hits a civilians with a PPSh 41 and yells "Oy! Get back 'ere!"
LMAO.
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Post by vsahdneek on Jun 15, 2009 3:39:47 GMT -5
'ere goes...
I think the other really 'orrible accent mate, wuz when da sgt handin' out de ammo and da rifles sez sumpin like 'the man wid the rifle shoots, when the man with the rifle falls, the second man with the ammo loads the rifle and shoots".... his cockney accent was so thick you could cut it with you scout knife!!! LOL!!!
Vlad
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Post by velodya on Jun 15, 2009 11:34:33 GMT -5
I thought he was trying a Russian accent, but there was some underlying interference.
One of the other worst was the guy in the suicide charge:
"Its 'opeles comrades! Get back!"
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Post by andreev on Jun 15, 2009 13:40:17 GMT -5
I agree on all that has been said on "Enemies at the Gate." At every living history I've been at, someone comes up and asks about that movie. They're always bummed out when I explain that, while Zaitsev was a real person, the duel with the supposed German officer is post war propaganda....And then I start giggling thinking about Bob Hoskins doing an accent that is part English and part Russian. Gets me every time.
-Matt
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Post by velodya on Jun 15, 2009 17:06:32 GMT -5
And here we were thinking it was a dramatic film when its actually a comedy!
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