MovieChat Forums > Mission to Moscow (1943) Discussion > I loved this film

I loved this film

posted 12 years ago by Gloede_The_Saint
1 reply | jump to latest

Certainly naive and misguided, but when you watch films you should see them through the glasses of their times and the information that was then available. Furthermore I don't think there were any direct lies in this film. The mock trials were shown as stilted, and with our current knowledge we can actually see that these people are lying, which was quite surprising. And objections were raised by characters in the film. The validity of the trial was never proclaimed by the film, only it's main character. And in fact everything we see is what he saw, we have no reason to believe the abmassador was lying.

I did not take offense at the misguided notions, and think it should rather serve as a warning. Fuurthermore the most important claim in this film - That Russia was an allie against Hitler, an allie that could defend himself and an allie we could work with - was true.

As for propaganda, I got to say that like most silent fans I'm a huge fan of Soviet Propaganda, often more for it's cinematic techniques than the actual meaning of the story, but never the less we still love these works today. This film is obviously not experimental in nature, like the early soviet films were, but it's still a beautifully made film with great performances and an entertaining and climatic tale. I can understand that many people are revolted at the naive presentation, but I think we should distance ourselves from such thoughts when judging a film on it's actual merits. And at this point in time this was what we knew.

My 1000 favorite films - http://www.imdb.com/list/PkAV7BgvMJg

[–] hobnob53 11 years ago

As someone pretty knowledgeable about history, politics and movies (immodest, I know), I like this film a lot too -- for its cinematic qualities, and for its unique depiction of a period of world history. It's excellently acted and directed, and technically very well made. It's never dull.

But the notion that "at this point in time this was what we knew" is completely false. Most people apart from dedicated and blinkered Communists knew in 1943 that the image of the USSR shown in this film was more than just false, more than just a bunch of outrageous lies, it was an insult to the millions of dead already piled up by Stalin and his regime. Plenty of people protested this film for its distortions of history (including the purge trials, where it was generally known even then were trumped-up charges used as an excuse to kill its imagined enemies), mostly liberal academics who detested both Communism and those foolish liberals who had naive daydreams about the nature of the Soviet Union.

There are scores of "direct lies" and falsehoods littering this film, which the screenwriters knew of and deliberately perpetrated. I'm not even getting into ideological slants; straight-out, unarguable facts were distorted, ignored or just plain lied about. Allowing for the fact that the USSR was our ally and we wanted to portray it as favorably as possible, the filmmakers could have acknowledged some basic truths and dealt with these honestly, while still making the point that we had a common enemy and needed to live together.

I really like this film, as much for its disgraceful historical lies as for its art, because it's fascinating to watch. But you have to know what you're looking at, and understand that it's mostly disgusting propaganda that ignores the endless violations of human rights and mass murders of the psychotic regime it was depicting.

Ambassador Davies was honest, but only in the way that any naive fool is honest.