Our answer to the Finnish Unknown Soldier. There are parallels in both paintings. Both take their origins from the works of Remarque about 1MB, considering the path of a separate group of comrades in the war, limited to one unit, and in our film also by the national difference from most soldiers of the Red Army. As well as in similar works, men are attracted to events, like chips picked up by a river. But the devil is in the nuances, so if the 1MV was not conducted in the interests of ordinary people at all, and the Finns and Estonians supporting Hitler’s attack on the USSR served as both indirect accomplices to the genocide of the Soviet people in the occupied territory, and direct, inspired by the new masters, performers, then the Estonians who were in the ranks of the Red Army served the Good, in the fight against unconditional Evil, albeit in a peasantly simple and judicious acceptance of their fate. The latter makes a similar attitude to the fate of the group of soldiers in the Finnish and Estonian film. Despite all the differences in socio-political views on life, these people adhere to the taken line, because the comrades around them do not think to deviate from the direction. This peasant obstinacy and the brotherhood it engenders give a very different connotation to relations in the subdivision - land-family relations, so one can probably define them precisely. In both Remarque and the Finns and Estonians, the original group loses its members killed. But if in Western films a fair share is occupied by the coverage of the trench life of the ordinary staff with its adversity, desires and joys, then in the Soviet film this moment is sequestered and only high-emotional episodes are left, where life and death are intertwined in war.
It is a pity that ' fighting ' only intended, for the entourage, I would like to see it in detail, especially the heroic participation of the 8th Estonian Rifle Corps in the Monsund landing operation, where these tigers of the war tore the Nazis to shreds, in all respects surpassing the widely advertised ' Overlord'.
Perhaps the only one of the films about the war is similar in construction on the work of Remarque.
7 out of 10