September 05, 2007
Movies about the Good War
War films are perhaps my favorite motion picture genre, and movies about World War II are (for me) the most compelling subset. War often illustrates the best -- and worst -- in mankind, and the Second World War represents perhaps the last, best, unambiguous conflict between good and evil.
Screenwriter Robert Avrech offers his list of the best films "obscure and interesting films" about World War II, and invites his readers to offer their own suggestions in the comments.
Many of his choices mirror my own, and his reasons for their inclusion are sound.
It's a good read; I intend to see some of the movies that I've overlooked, beginning with The Winter War and Too Late the Hero.
Avrech says about Winter War:
This obscure Finnish film is one of my all time favorites. In 1939 Russia invaded Finland and the tiny Finnish nation fought an incredible 100 day war against the might Russian army. This movies tells the story of a group of ordinary farmers who fight in a reserve unit. The battle scenes are authentic and gripping. There is very little heroism, just a group of desperate men fighting to survive the relentless onslaught of an overwhelming enemy. Powerful and beautifully acted. Scenes at the home front will just tear at your gut as wives, mothers and sisters watch their men march off to almost certain slaughter.
Avrech recommends the Russian film, Come and See, cautioning that its portrayal of the Nazi's brutality is unflinching and harrowing, a reminder of the incredible savagery inflicted upon the Soviet people by the Germans -- and an explanation for why the Russians repaid the gore-flecked debt in kind when they conquered the Third Reich and took Berlin in 1945.
This might be the most powerful and brutal war movie I have ever seen. It's a Soviet film that tells the story of young Florya, a naive 16-year old Byelorussian, who joins the partisans to fight the Nazis. Soon he finds himself in a scorched landscape where slaughter is the norm. Glascha, a mystical peasant girl, joins him in his odyssey and scenes of incredible brutality alternate with scenes of great lyricism—Glascha doing the Charleston in the rain in a primevil forest. There is a long, harrowing set-piece where an S.S. unit slaughters everyone in a Byelorussian village. It's so powerful, so painful, so authentic in its portrayal of casual mass murder that I chewed my lip raw. This is a great and powerful film; there are no great heroic battles, no charges to take pill boxes, just slogging through mud, the utter chaos of battle, the gut-crunching fear of death, the desire for blood vengeance, and the animal desire to stay alive. Do not let your children see this film, nor is it for the faint-hearted.
I heartily second his praise for Band of Brothers, the fantastic HBO miniseries about the men of Easy Company, following them from their training in the U.S., to the flak-filled skies over Normandy, from the French bocage to the frozen, blood-stained snow of Belgium's Battle of the Bulge.
Each episode begins with the real soldiers of Easy Company, old now, some frail, others suprisingly hale and hearty, remembering their days on the field of battle. The camera captures those quiet moments when, 56 years later, their eyes fill with tears at the memory of a friend dying in their arms, their voices thick with emotion as they speak of the almost indescribable bond they shared with their comrades.
Each episode manages to create a perfect representation of what it was like to be an American GI in Europe during 1944-45. Don't take my word for it; the survivors of Easy Company said the show was as close to the real thing as is possible.
There's a moment in the last episode when one of the aged vets tells of a letter he received from one of his men, recounting a conversation he had with his grandson.
"Were you a hero, Grandpa?" he asks. "No," his grandfather answers, "but I served in the company of heroes."
The man telling the story, Dick Winters, the former commanding officer of Easy Company, can barely finish telling the story, so intense are his emotions.
And I can't watch him tell it without weeping -- for him, and the eternally-young men who slumber the dreamless sleep of the dead in cemeteries across the battle-scarred (and ungrateful) European Continent.
It's a stunning achievement, all the better when viewed uninterrupted on DVD, rather than the edited and commercial-plagued version on the History Channel.
Posted by Mike Lief at September 5, 2007 11:03 PM
| TrackBack
Comments
I disagree about They Were Expendable. The unavoidable problem with the movie is that it glorifies Douglas MacArthur's shameful abandonment of his troops. I know his apologists will tell you that he wanted to stay and only left because of a direct order issued by FDR in the interest of preserving a national icon. He should have stayed, and his humiliating treatment of General Wainwright at the end of the war revealed his personal sense of shame at his own behaviour. But even if we accept that he only left because he was ordered to leave, why did his wife and child AND nurse AND butler AND personal staff stay so long that they also had to be evacuated at the last minute? The movie skips the unavoidable fact that the Donna Reed character certainly went into a Japanese prison camp for four years, to endure the most degrading captivity imaginable. And ALL of the nurses could have left Corregidor in the PT boats if Dougout Doug had sent his wife home when the war started and if he and his staff had stayed to fight it out. I love John Wayne movies, but I can't watch that one without a barf bag. Watch Sands of Iwo Jima instead.
Posted by: The Little Coach at September 6, 2007 08:13 AM
Mike:
Thanks so much for the link and the kind words. Just one correction. My list is not the Ten Best War Movies. In fact, I go out of my way to say that I'm listing "obscure and interesting films."
I only have a #1 Best Film on my life's list: "The Seven Samurai." After that, the list is always shifting:)
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at September 6, 2007 10:49 AM