A Shocking Movie for Its Time On the battlefields of the Vietnam War, the Easter Truce. Sergeant Meserva's unit is suffering from boredom. First they play cards (using German names of suits), then they shave off one of the ordinary mustaches. Finally, they notice a Vietnamese girl Mao (Eva Mattes) riding a bicycle, who was driving for milk for her sick brother, but did not know that she was crossing a war zone. In the film, half the effect of which is created by the camera operator Igor Luther, there is a great deal of convention: Vietnam was filmed in Bavaria, Americans are portrayed by Germans. The director himself plays the noble soldier Sven Eriksson, who at the risk of his life got to his superiors with a report about what happened and heard that if the system commits crimes, it is OK. And if there is an exposure of the system, such a film by the American chairman of the jury is declared “anti-American” and its display leads to the disruption of the festival and the cancellation of awards for all participants, and in 1970, according to Dushan Makaveev, a member of the jury of the Berlinale, who took up the “Golden Bear”, the greatest chances were in the film “Why is Mr. R. crazy?”, deprived of its true creator Michael Fengler and attributed to Fassbinder.
8 out of 10
