As they say from ancient times: victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is always an orphan. The film was shot in 1989 based on the novel by Vasil Bykov. The story was published in 1985. The battles of 1944 were described.
Features: the commander at the very beginning is experiencing due to the fact that delay with the order to take height, breaking through on the shoulders of the retreating enemy, threatens to worsen the situation. You’ll probably have to go up!
But the order from the regiment was not given in time. And when they caught up, time was lost and the enemy managed to gain a foothold. It's not just trenches. There are machine gun points, and shooting of the terrain, and mining, and wire fences ...
Every hour of delay costs people’s lives, and survivors can be crippled. The leitmotif: you should not fight with hats throwing, not with relational and not with “meat”... You gotta do it.
As for the position, next to the main height there is a second, if it is occupied by the enemy, the attackers will receive deadly fire from the flank. Part of the offensive line is complicated by the swamp ...
But the main complication was not the presence of the enemy on a small high-rise, not even the delay with the attack, leading to unreasonably large losses, but the stupid behavior of the regimental commander-careerist.
Complications happen on the battlefield. If a smart commander makes timely adjustments to change the situation, then problems can be dealt with. If you blunt and send soldiers to pay with their lives for the mistakes of the commander, there is a tragic collision.
The film was shot at a time when there was too much irritation over the propaganda-imposed boastful style in war cinema. Unfortunately, the pomposity and urry-works of the Soviet military cinema has accumulated a lot.
For this reason, there are questions about a particular film. After the war, we had to argue about the cost of victory. The resentment of the front-line soldiers caused civil disputes about justified and unjustified losses. The most painful aspect of these disputes was that they inevitably included veterans.
This state of society should be understood, probably, as a special problem of combining the delicacy and post-war experience of everyone – both those who fought, and the rearists, and post-war historians, reenactors, in general, everyone who would like to know the truth about the war.
But in the disputes of veterans civilian would be better not to get involved. Bykov by age was in the army since 1942, on the front since 1943, began as a lieutenant. As a veteran gifted with literary talent, he had the right and opportunity to write about the war and warring people, because he is an eyewitness and participant in events.
The film in two parts showed the victory (taking an important high point with a dangerous zone of fire and the opportunity to build a strong defense), received at too high a price. Until now, in responses to prose and cinema, shot on the story of Bykov, argue and opinions differ.
Some believe that Bykov and the director of the film Karpov (Alexander Yakovlevich) raised antiheroic problems. However, this point of view is strongly opposed by the opinions of people who are sure that all the truth is needed in the works about the war, even very ugly.
In this particular piece, the compulsion of the regiment cost too heavy losses. If thrift could be dosed, and feat and meanness measured in some understandable units, the debate could lead to at least some consensus, but ...
That's impossible. And today, 77 years after the events described by Bykov and shown by Karpov in the film, it is still impossible for us to say that the debates are over, that we have assessed and measured everything. Only the participants of those military events are almost gone.
And if we now claim that we have understood everything, that we finally know what the truth of war is, then there is no one to correct us. Conclusion: Delicacy in assessments is still needed.
And Bykov and Karpov, the creator of the story and the film, based on motives, must be believed for the main reason: they saw and knew personally what we are now discussing abstractly. The film is considered to be true.
Or else the situation dictates. From the very beginning, we are immersed in ' the untold truth of the war', and speaking in non-native language, we are introduced to the memes of demotivators about the Great Patriotic War (here and the PPJ, and, of course: - You, look, he feels sorry for people! - coming from a higher commander), and the film is emotionally fixing and confirming all the above-mentioned sentences with a scene with the burial of fallen soldiers. Not the funeral team, but the forces of survivors, which causes rational bewilderment, but passes after the perception of the composition of the film. Which was built on the basis of the quite mainstream in 1989 concept of finding the most negative sides even in such an unthinkable in brightness and purity as victory in the Second World War. What can we say about other aspects of life, if in such things sought or invented impurities.
That's where the separation of the artist from the person, inside the director, when the first used the channel and just minted another dummy & #39, truth & #39, absolutely not thinking... but just about the originality, distinctiveness from other crafts of that year in cinema. Nothing stopped these creators - hype, he in 1989 hype.
There was one phrase from the gents about the possibility of higher commanders to consult with lower commanders about the specific conditions of execution of orders, and not to be a simple translator of these orders from above. After all, in our military cinema, there are two types of representation of such vertical connections: either, as in this film, the incompetence of the boss, compensated for by the statutory obedience leading to catastrophic consequences, or the genius of the boss, when every one of his orders is like a line and as a result the complete success of the idea. But just the meetings with subordinates, and not just bringing to them the order, just something I remember from the movies, although from life it is known that participation in the decision of subordinates, can give a completely different coloring to the facts and necessary actions, and just reduces the likelihood of sabotage of the order ' quiet', which opportunities everyone closer to the ground enough. and something is not believed that so well adjusted even before Berlin, the Red Army machine did not have this psychological sketch in relations. However, the gentleman who gives this advice himself does not use this in the picture, content to convey his own opinion.
Returning to the main conflicts of the picture: ' I, the boss - you fool' and ' at any cost' That both certainly took place in the war and combined at one point could well cause terrible losses. And now abstracting from the goal-setting of the removal (the word, of course, clumsy, but from exact synonyms only Ukrainian film is remembered) the picture at that time and with such an intonation of the narrative can be seen as one of the episodes, of course, tragic, the Second World War, shown clearly by the action refracted through the characters of the characters - Boris Rudnev, such a quiet careerist, turned out especially well. And the picture is good, especially the background for the credits.
By the way, according to the picture - an attack with a commander running around the field silently opening his mouth was pushed to the memory of the already seen such - and where! - in ' Paths of Glory' Kubrick! A little digging, I found a correspondence of 75 percent with this creation! And there and there the attack at the whim of the boss to the height. And there's no way to get up under machine guns. And there and there sending to the death of soldiers who did not follow the order and even the characters of lieutenants are similar, not directly, but in readiness to identify. And in this picture there was also an unexplained moment for me: if you realize the meaninglessness of the order and care so much about the lives of your subordinates, why not go to the tribunal yourself, saving their lives, because you could completely sabotage the offensive, which was a misdemeanor, but still not the death of many soldiers. But no, our years will walk for a long time and worry, but such an idea will not come up and even receive a promotion and reward. So in the end Vasil Bykov creatively plagiarized ' Path of fame', i.e. ' truth-truths' began their pranks with sources not ' Moving up'? Who would have thought that?!
As an independent, integral and well-explained work would have a chance to be, if not for the suspicious similarity in plot and characters on ' Paths of Glory' from Kubrick, and the camera. As a work bearing a certain potential of meanings, it is quite typical with its contemporaries and their followers in modern times. And personally, I already want an expanded film with a fascinating plot based on those incredible achievements of Soviet soldiers and their commanders described by historians, supported by artistic processing based on psychology and the reliability of existence in those conditions. In general, the work of the mind of filmmakers.
Because of the miscalculations of the command, a strategically important height was not taken and the commander of the regiment, fearing for his career, orders the battalion of Captain Nikolai Voloshin, completely unprepared for attack, to correct the situation. A wise and humane commander resists thoughtless orders, taking care of his people first, not wanting to send them to certain death. But the order is an order - and its failure to comply leads to the removal from command of the battalion Voloshin, in whose place is appointed careerist Markin, who without hesitation does everything that the commanders say. As a result of a protracted, heavy and bloody attack, the height was still taken with the direct participation of the captain removed from command, but the price behind it was too high.
O'Henry said that "life consists of tears, sighs and smiles" - so to paraphrase the American classic you can say that war, in many ways, consists of taking heights. During the counter-offensive of Soviet troops, during the liberation of Europe from the Nazis, thousands of heights were taken. But each height, each battalion attack is a different story and hundreds or even thousands of lives. No wonder, the Belarusian writer-frontier Vasil Bykov devoted more than one of his works to such seemingly everyday military events - in addition to "His Battalion" you can recall the stories "Attack" and "Cursed Height".
The most important thing that distinguishes taking one height from another is people. It is people who are the main characters of all Bykov’s works, it is on people that the creators of the film “His Battalion” focused their attention. (By the way, the director of the picture Alexander Karpov in 1975 already worked on the set with Vasil Bykov, filming the mini-series “Long versts of war” based on the writer’s works). In the center of the story is the commander Voloshin, his thoughts, experiences, actions through the prism of relations with the command, with subordinates, through the prism of battle. During a complex military operation, all the veils are broken, the true essences of people are manifested - and in place of the assistant is a thoughtless performer, and in place of the staff veterinarian - almost the most sane person among the entire command.
At the same time, you do not need to exaggerate and generalize everything you saw on the screen - not all the commanders of the regiment were like Gunko, not all the commanders were like Voloshin. It should be remembered that Karpov made a movie not about war in the first place, but about people! And war is only an indicator that best allows you to reveal the human essence (from which the theme of war will always be in demand in art).
And best of all, in my opinion, to sum up the essence of the film can be the words of Bykov - "And the more significant in a person is truly human, the more important for him his own life and the lives of people around him." It was this ideal of a man and commander that developed in a warring soldier, who later became an eminent writer.
9 out of 10
The score was shot for the "television format" of the film. Still, the military picture of scale is lacking – the corresponding history of scenery and special effects. At the same time, it is impossible not to note the remarkable play of Vitaly Zikora in the role of commander Voloshin and how close the film is to the literary source.
The main character argues heroically with incompetent bosses and heroically complains about the lack of ammunition. The leaders shine with their hopeless stupidity and pronounced disregard for soldiers’ lives. And the dog from poor Voloshin is taken away. In general, the darkness ...
Just imagine that if there were really a lot of such "Gunko" if all the commanders were such dullards and did not value soldiers' lives, if all the attacks were carried out in the absence of ammunition and the impossibility of artillery training - it is obvious that the war would not have won.
A couple of unexplained ideological moments:
At the beginning of the film - a heartfelt conversation Voloshin with Lieutenant Markin, setting the viewer on the desired wave. About how unsweet it was for this lieutenant who came out of the encirclement. A hint that the bloody NKVD tortured the poor... (And what should counterintelligence do with a huge stream of potential spies?) Also sounds "winged phrase": "With checkers naked against tanks" - without comment.
And the second is the replenishment that came to Voloshin. He asks those who are “untrained” to disable. That's a lie. They did not send untrained fighters to the front who did not undergo training and the “young fighter course”.
I will not tell you about various disgusting scenes of neglect of soldiers by commanders-“not Voloshins”.
Anyway, I'm summarizing. The film is from a pleiad of newcomers who began to appear in perestroika, the purpose of which is to discredit the Soviet leadership and inflate anti-Soviet myths about the war (the main thing here is about “throwing corpses” and about the victory “not thanks, but in spite”). As a result, the general downplaying of the importance of the Victory and the feat of the people.
For the lies and anti-Soviet ideology of the film using the image of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Major Voloshin (who, I doubt, would have approved the film):
1 in 10.
One of the most honest, truthful and realistic, in my opinion, films about the Great Patriotic War.
The picture begins with the titles giving the text of the archival reference: "The commander of the 294th rifle regiment Hero of the Soviet Union Voloshin Nikolai Ivanovich was killed on March 24, 1945 and buried in a mass grave located 350 meters northwest of Steindorf (East Prussia)." The film is based on the novel by Vasil Bykov and is dedicated to one local episode of the war - the storming of the height of the 60.5 battalion of Captain Voloshin. That same commander Voloshin, who later became the commander of the regiment and died in East Prussia.
Each of the two series of the film has its own function: the first is entirely devoted to the story of the preparation of the battalion for the storming of the height, the second tells directly about the assault itself. The main character of the film Voloshin (this role is brilliantly performed by Vitaly Zikora) appears before us as an experienced officer, a sensitive leader who cares about literally every soldier, just a decent person who realizes that he, the captain, and each ordinary soldier are doing one common cause in the name of the liberation of the Motherland.
On the contrary, a completely different understanding of life and war in the immediate head Voloshin regiment commander Major Gunko (Sergey Priselkov). For Gunko, the main thing is to formally carry out the order, no matter how much it will be carried out, and how many soldiers’ lives it will take to carry out this order. Gunko is a typical self-styled commander, a rude, stupid and uncouth “soldier”, sending people to certain death. There were many such “gunko” in our army during the war. For their criminal decisions, ordinary soldiers paid with their lives and blood.
Voloshin - and with him the viewer, and any sane person - it is obvious that the height had to be taken immediately, when the battalion was in the process of attack. To stand before the height and give the enemy time to gain a foothold on it is a completely unreasonable decision. But that was the decision of the careerist Gunko. Naturally, between Gunko and Voloshin all the time strained relations, the latter is forced to carry out incompetent orders of the regiment commander. Perform in spite of everything - in the absence of ammunition, with a monstrous shortage of personnel, an unfavorable position in the attack site, etc. Voloshin doesn’t even have time to train the reinforcements he sent in, and the little he can say to these unfired fighters are just tough but wise words of war: Remember the law of the infantryman: as soon as possible to run to the enemy, and kill him. If you can't kill him, he'll kill you.
Further clear - dagger queues of German machine guns, the whistling of bullets, mines, fire, smoke, blood, moaning of the wounded and the wheezing of the dying ... But there is no way back - only forward and forward. Bykov, and with him the film adaptation of the story, reveal the cruel truth of the war. What was the cost of a soldier’s life, why did we pay such a high price for Victory, who was to blame for so many victims, whether such terrible losses could have been avoided – such questions arise one after another when watching a film. Let each viewer try to answer these questions for himself.
9 out of 10